The Job Offer, Deep Attachment
by Zephyr
Summary: Part 1, "Transfer papers for Booth? Booth's being transferred?" Part 2, "Sometimes,” Cullen continued with a hard glare at Booth, “Partners who have been together too long become overly-protective - " Part 1 has been added to since originally published.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Bones or its characters…and whatever else I'm supposed to say

Author's Note: The first part of this you may have already seen and read published under the title "The Job Offer," which includes chapters 1-12, but chapters 6 and 7 are new and there are other little revicsions along the way. Then chapters 13 and up are brand new and hopefully will be all uploaded by the end of the week. I foolishly thought my original story was uncontinuable and that I was free to get back to real life. Alas, I realized my "ending" had set up a new conflict for Booth and Brennan, and, with it, an opportunity wreak some justice on Sweets (who I like very much, and even forgive, but he still needs to be slugged), and an excuse to bring Wyatt back for a visit! I couldn't pass all that up. I hope it's enjoyable.

* * *

Special Agent Seely Booth sat at his desk. His son's mother, Rebecca, had chosen to stand as she delivered the news she had to tell him.

"…in Utah," she finished after an uncomfortable pause.

"A job in Utah - what like a business trip?" Booth asked.

"No, Seely, a permanent job. A permanent move."

"Rebecca -"

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity," she cut him off hurriedly, "doing what he loves and getting paid very well for it. Plus we'd be closer to my parents for …"

"For what?" Booth demanded - not that it mattered to him. She was not taking his son all the way to Utah.

"For Parker and -"

"Whoever else comes along?" he finished for her.

"Yes," she sighed, clearly wishing she had better avoided the topic, "We're trying to have a baby."

"Well, that's great," came back the sarcastic reply she expected.

"Seely, please don't think we made our decision lightly -"

"'_Our_ decision,'" he repeated, leaping to his feet, "You mean yours and Joe's, right? Parker is my son but I have no say!"

"Believe me I wish it didn't have to be this way," she told him, taking a small step back from his desk, "Lord knows I don't want to have to ship Parker all the way back to D.C. and have him so far away when he visits you, but if that's what you want, of course, we will. He needs you in his life I know that -"

"Wait, wait, wait - what do you mean _if _that's what I want?" he demanded, hitting his fists against his desk as he leaned over it menacingly, "You think I'd let you just take him off to Utah without a fight? You think I - I'd just accept never seeing him -"

"No, Seely, of course not! _Never_. I _meant_, if you choose to stay in D.C."

"_Choose _to stay? My life is here, my job," his voice started to trail off, "my friends -"

"Yeah, and I get that, I do," Rebecca assured him and once again approached the edge of his desk, "but… you could request a transfer, if you wanted to."

He straightened up. It was his turn to retreat.

"_What?_" he exclaimed.

"When Joe and I were discussing it, weighing our options, I checked with Cullen and he said there's more than a good chance a transfer to Salt Lake City would be approved."

"You spoke to Cullen about moving before me?"

"I needed to know," she explained, "If there was no way, that might have changed our decision and there wouldn't have been any point in telling you about it."

"Oh, I see, so if I don't chase after you and Parker to Utah, it's because I don't love him enough - it's not that you're ripping him away from his father for the sake of your husband's career!"

"That's not -" she stared at him with two-parts fury to one part hurt, before taking a breath and composing herself slightly, "For God's sake, listen to me - I would never accuse you of not loving him enough! When you've had a chance to cool off and think things through we'll talk about visitation. I'm willing to go through mediation if that's what it takes."

Booth just looked disgusted.

Rebecca turned to go, but thought better of it and added, "I'm doing the best I can, Seely. Trying to do what's best for Parker, for my husband, for the family we're building, and even for you - this was the best I could come up with."

"Your best isn't good enough."

Rebecca gave an exasperated shrug and left, this time, without hesitation.

Booth scooped up his stress ball and hurled it into the back corner of his office with primal grunt.

* * *

Back at the Jeffersonian, in Dr. Temperance Brennan's office…

"Haven't seen Booth in a while," Angela commented.

"Rebecca let him have Parker for a week," Bones answered, as she continued working at her computer.

"A whole week?"

"Yeah, he thinks she's buttering him up for something bad," Brennan noted.

"Well, as long as he has a positive attitude about it," Angela replied, "When's the week up?"

"Two days ago."

"Then I stand by my previous statement - haven't seen Booth in a while."

Brennan didn't respond.

"Unless you have? Outside of work?"

The question wasn't voiced with any kind of innuendo, for once, but Bones was sure if her answer had been yes, it would have been forthcoming.

"No I haven't. Maybe Parker ended up staying longer. Or cases could just be slow, that happens from time to time."

"And we should be glad when it does, I know," Angela said, with a note of contrition, "Hey have you met your new intern yet?"

Bones exhaled a cross between a groan and a sigh.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey Angela," came Booth's voice, followed by Booth himself, into her office, "Is Bones here?"

"Hey Booth, long time no see," Angela greeted him, "I'm not sure where she went, but I'm pretty sure she's avoiding the new intern. You should try her cell."

"Yeah, I'll do that."

He seemed rooted to where he stood. So Angela turned away from her desk to give him her full attention.

"Do you have a second to, um, talk?" he asked.

"About Brennan?"

"No, it's not about Bones," he said dismissively. _Too _dismissively.

"It's got to have something to do with Brennan or else you'd go straight to her with it, not me."

Booth let out a frustrated sigh and dropped himself on Angela's couch. She waited patiently for him to spill.

"Rebecca's husband got offered this fantastic job… in Utah. Her parents live there too - so, basically there's like a hundred million reasons why it's the greatest thing ever for all of them."

"Oh God."

"They're going. And there's nothing I can do to stop it."

"Brennan mentioned you thought the week with Parker was meant to soften you up for something."

"Heh yeah. Didn't work."

"Well, of course not. What about visitation? She's got to let you have some kind of joint custody doesn't she?"

"Well, she wouldn't be obligated unless I tried suing for partial custody - they'd never give me full custody to keep him here. Not as an FBI agent. But Rebecca agrees Parker needs me in his life and she's willing to work out a schedule - summers, some holidays and whatever…"

"But it still sucks."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

Angela studied him for a moment as he sat hunched over with his elbows on his knees, studying his hands.

"There's something more though, isn't there?"

He looked up from his hands. She couldn't imagine what could make the situation worse for him.

"I could follow him."

"To Utah?" Angela exclaimed, nearly adding, 'What about Brennan?' but she caught herself and said instead, "What about your job?"

"I could transfer to Salt Lake City."

"_No_, you _couldn't_," Angela retorted reflexively.

"Angela, he's my son," Booth said, his eyes pleading for understanding, "How can I not?"

"Sweetie," she began, racking her brains for the words to ease his turmoil, to make it okay for him to consider his own happiness in this awful set of circumstances, "Only you can know what decision you'll be able to live with. And maybe this won't come as any comfort to you, but a lot of kids these days grow up with parents living long distances apart. And if any father can make it work - can make sure his son grows up well-adjusted and happy even with that kind of distance from his dad - you can. That's how good a father you are."

Booth's gaze had fallen to the floor and he was running his fingers through his hair.

Softly, she heard herself add, "You don't have to choose between them." But from his answer it seemed like he didn't hear her.

"A good father doesn't let himself get separated from his kid."

_Oh god_, Angela thought, _he's made up his mind. Poor Brennan. Poor both of them_.

"When are you going to tell her?" Angela asked, but something beyond her, outside her office had caught his attention.

"Oh, you have _got _to be kidding me," he very nearly growled.

She looked where he was looking just in time to see Brennan walk past with Agent Sully - that is, if he was even an agent anymore.

"Booth, don't -" Angela started, but he was already up and out the door. She followed.

* * *

"Sully!" he sounded friendly, Angela thought, and Sully reacted in kind.

"Hey Booth!"

They shook hands and clapped each other on the back. Angela watched Brennan for signs of how she felt about Sully's return, but all she could tell was that Brennan was slightly uncomfortable at Booth and Sully's interaction and that could mean anything. Booth's news had thrown Angela off, temporarily blurring the sharpness of her empathic insights.

"Are you back?" Booth asked.

"Yeah, back in D.C.," Sully confirmed.

"What about the Bureau?"

"Yeah," Sully remarked with a sigh, "I think I need my head examined, but I miss the work and I'm in the process of getting reinstated."

"That's great," Booth said, again sounding astonishingly sincere, "I'm actually on my way out for a meeting with Cullen - could you walk out with me? I've got something Bureau-related I'd like to run by you."

"All of a sudden?" Bones chimed, confused, " He's been gone for over two years."

"Yeah, well, it's old stuff, kinda sensitive, need-to-know, you understand, Bones," he said, "It'll only take a few minutes."

"I was going back to work anyway, we were just catching up at lunch," Bones told him, as if answering for Sully, or releasing him to Booth's custody. Her body language, however, clearly indicated she wasn't at all satisfied with Booth's explanation.

Angela felt helpless. What was this nonsense about FBI business with Sully? And the meeting with Cullen - would the transfer be a done deal after that? He should be talking to Brennan, not Sully!

Brennan had gone back into her office, Angela seized her chance by seizing Booth's arm.

"Booth didn't you say you needed to talk to Brennan _before _that meeting with Cullen?" she asked pointedly, but using her inside-voice so as not to trigger Brennan's selective hearing. Angela wasn't altogether sure, however, that she shouldn't be shouting to draw Brennan out and make Booth talk to her.

"What? Uh, no I was going to talk to her first, but then they were too late getting back from lunch - it'll keep til after. I'll be late otherwise, come on Sul."

* * *

"What's this about, Booth?" Sully asked once they were out of the lab.

"I don't mean to pry, Sully, really," Booth began carefully. Normally he wouldn't bother being careful with such a question, but he needed to be on Sully's good side for this.

"I promise I have a good reason to ask," Booth continued, "which I'll get to, but, uh, are you planning on getting back together with Bones?"

Sully paused a moment, glancing over Booth's face, decided he was sincere and answered:

"Well, I had hoped, but she made it clear at lunch that she had moved on."

Booth raised an eyebrow at the possible implication of 'moved on,' but decided he didn't have time to pursue it.

"But you still have romantic feelings for her?" Booth pressed.

"I'd thought I would," Sully said, with a sharp glance to indicate he was reaching his breaking point with Booth's line of questioning, "but I think she's right, actually. We missed our chance. Now that I've bared my soul on that subject, do you mind telling me what your _good _reason for asking is?"

"Well, you two worked well together on the gator case and if there's no romantic complications still present -"

"You got another psych evaluation or something?" Sully interjected, grinning.

"No," Booth answered, sadness creeping into his voice, "It's, it's ah more permanent than that. My son's mother is taking him to Utah, to live. Her husband got a job there."

"And you're going to transfer to the Salt Lake office?" the other agent deduced with evident surprise.

Before Booth could decide on how to answer, Sully asked: "But you haven't told Temperance yet?"

Booth shook his head.

"You want me to take your place as her partner? Permanently?" Sully asked, still disbelieving. To the prodigal agent, Booth's face seemed to have gone ashen very suddenly.

"I could recommend it to Cullen," Booth explained, "That way she doesn't have to work with a stranger."

"You're really going to go?" Sully asked."He's my kid," was all Booth could say.

"Wow," Sully said, shaking his head.

"What?" - Booth wanted to know.

"It's just, Brennan," Sully tried to explain, "Talking with her at lunch, it was clear you two have become really _really _close. I mean you guys were tight before I left, but…"

Sully trailed off and Booth gave a sort of nod in reply. The agents looked at each other uncomfortably not sure what else there was to say.

"Yeah, man, feel free to recommend me to Cullen," Sully offered finally, "and good luck with everything."

"Thanks."

They shook hands again, briefly this time, and parted ways.


	3. Chapter 3

Meanwhile, back in the lab…

"What's goin on?"

Angela turned to see Hodgins standing there. He was still as stiff and uncomfortable around her as ever, but her distress over Booth and Brennan must have been too much for him to ignore. As she tried to explain, she led him back into her office for more privacy.

"It's… it's just," she tried at first to sound nonchalant, feeling guilty for making him care, and knowing she shouldn't be telling anyone before Booth told Brennan herself, but soon she was blurting it all out:

"Parker's mom is taking him to Utah and now Booth feels like he has to transfer there to be with him."

"Whoa."

Two voices had spoken in unison - neither of them Jack's, making Angela's eyes grow wide with horror. Apparently, Cam and Sweets had both been awaiting her return to her office.

"Okay, you guys did _not _hear that!" Angela said in a loud whisper, beginning to panic, "Oh god, he hasn't even told Brennan yet, and I've spilled it to _everyone _now."

She sat down heavily and buried her face in her hands.

"Gary doesn't know," Cam offered, trying lamely to be supportive.

"Who?" Angela asked.

"The new intern," Sweets reminded her.

"Gary doesn't even know Booth or Brennan yet," Hodgins pointed out under his breath.

"Don't worry about me, Angela, confidentiality is my code," Sweets promised.

She sighed dismally and the other three unconsciously formed a half circle around her.

"Well," she said, "Now that you all know… any ideas how to keep them together?"

Their silence was not encouraging. Cam was the first to break it.

"Maybe the possible separation will be the push they need to finally admit their feelings to each other."

The other three at her with varying degrees of surprise.

"Oh come on," she said to them, "I've been rooting for those two as much as anyone - you know, _after _Seely and I broke up, at least."

"You and Booth? Really?" Sweets started, "That's interesting. When -"

"No," Cam cut him off, "It's not interesting, Sweets, move on."

"Sorry, of course," Sweets said with a submissive nod, "Though I'm sorry to contradict your optimism Dr. Saroyan but, if anything, these two are going to leap on the opportunity to give up on _ever _being honest with each other about how they feel. For different reasons, I predict they'll both take Parker's moving away as a sign they were never meant to be together."

This was much more astounding to Jack and Angela than Cam's revelation. Angela, though, was torn between being astounded by Sweets' interest in the couple as a couple and devastated by his prognosis for them.

"Um, Sweets," Jack said cautiously, "Too late now, I guess, but isn't part of your job to break up partners if they develop romantic feelings for one another?"

"Well, yes and no. Strictly speaking, my job is assess the effectiveness of partnerships, help those that need it to become more effective, and when a partnership is too dysfunctional to succeed, then yes, sometimes it falls under my purview to recommend partners be separated."

Angela looked to Cam for confirmation. Discreetly, Cam gave a slight shake of her head and mouthed 'bullshit.'

"No one can argue they're not an effective team," Sweets said defensively, turning to see what was transpiring between Angela and Cam, but missing it.

"You've been protecting them all this time," Hodgins said to Sweets in a tone mixed with both accusation and approval.

"What? No that is not -"

"You've been keeping them together when the FBI would have wanted them split up," Hodgins insisted, "You hopeless romantic you."

"No-"

"Great, we're all on the same side," Angela interrupted the boys to return the task at hand, "Sweets, you must have it wrong about Booth, at least. Sure, I know Brennan has issues - understandably - from her family leaving her, but what could stop Booth from declaring his love for her before its too late?"

Cam and Jack looked from Angela to Sweets to hear his answer.

"He's afraid," Sweets said simply. So simply that Hodgins had to scoff.

"Afraid? Booth?"

Sweets nodded, unperturbed by the doubting Hodgins, "Yes. Of rejection."

When the women looked skeptical as well, Sweets elaborated, "Like any of us would be, Agent Booth is terrified of being rejected by someone he loves so deeply as he loves Dr. Brennan. He will _not _rush things with her. And even though he's wrong to fear her rejection, it's not unreasonable for him to have doubts that she would want to pursue the type of long-term, committed relationship with him that he wants with her. They have, after all, very different perspectives on sex, love, marriage, and kids - all of which could make such a relationship between them impossible."

"Impossible my eye!" Angela rounded on him, "What's impossible is for them to be apart. Sweets, you've got to get Booth to express his feelings to her before its too late. You're their shrink and their mental health is at stake!"

"I'll certainly try, but there's not much I can do unless Booth chooses to bring his dilemma to me, which" - the young doctor couldn't help adding - "he's _not _going to do. Not in a million years."

"You're really bringing me down, kiddo," Angela complained.

"Sorry," he said with a shrug, then glanced abruptly at his watch, "Oh crap, I am so totally going to be late for a session - later, guys."

Sweets took off out of Angela's office, leaving Hodgins, Angela and Cam behind.

"I hate it too," Cam said, "But I don't see what we can do. It's up to Booth and Brennan to make themselves happy or miserable as they see fit. For what it's worth though, I think this is one of those rare times when Sweets has it wrong. You had it right, Angela, when you said it's impossible for them to be apart. Have faith in that."

Angela gave Cam a weak smile for her efforts as Cam headed back to work. Apparently, the drama had caused both her and Sweets to forget why they had come to Angela's office in the first place.

Hodgins hadn't moved. He seemed to be thinking.

"What is it, Jack?" she asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

"Rebecca's husband," he said, still looking pensive, "Do you know his name? What he does?"

"Hodgins," she said with playfulness and just a touch of concern, "You've got a look like you're plotting a conspiracy of your own, or something."

He grinned, "Just tell me: can you find out?"


	4. Chapter 4

When Booth entered the lab, Brennan was alone, examining remains on the platform.

"Where is everybody?" he asked, trying his best to sound conversational.

She looked up, as if surprised to see he was right.

"Hodgins was just here," she said, "And Cam. That's weird."

"Not really," Booth disagreed, "Once you get into your work, you know, the rest of the world kind of fades away around you, you know…"

His awkwardness was beginning to show, he knew. He couldn't tell her out in the middle of everything and not while she distracted by work. At the same time he hated the thought of telling her privately in her office, without any distractions.

"Well, they've all been acting weird since lunch," she noted, "Have we got a case?"

It hit him then. Ahead of schedule. The realness of his decision. There would be a last case - if it hadn't happened already.

"Booth," she said, to get his attention. She was now fully focused on him, forgetting the remains in front of her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he lied quickly, "Hodgins and Cam have been acting weird? Weird how?"

"Weird like you're being now," she answered flatly, "Angela too."

_Angela_, Booth thought, _she let it slip to both Hodgins __**and **__Cam?_

"So we don't have a case?" Bones guessed, interrupting his thoughts.

"Ah no, not yet," he said, "I came by to see if you wanted to get dinner."

"Sure, but it'll take me at least thirty minutes to finish the -"

"Perfect, no problem, I'll just go see what those '_weirdos' _are up to and I'll meet you in your office when you're ready."

Before Bones could begin to remark on his odd behavior he was long gone. She was tempted to go after him, but decided she could confront him about it at dinner.

"Angela," Booth hissed, storming into her office, "What the hell?"

Angela looked at him for a moment like a deer in the headlights, then panicked:

"You know? How did you find out - Oh my God did _she _figure it out???"

"No," he said, "Which is the only reason I haven't shot you already, but she's noticed how weird you're _all _acting. Did I really have to _say _it was supposed to stay just between us?"

"I was only going to tell Hodgins," Angela tried to explain, "and only because he could see how upset I was, but then Cam and Sweets were waiting in my office and I didn't see them there -"

"Alright, alright, alright," he cut her off, "I'll be telling her at dinner anyway, so if you all can just avoid her til then, or something, everything should be fine… God, Sweets too?"

Hodgins walked in then, saw the state Booth was in, and promptly walked right back out. Still somewhat wound up, Booth decided to pursue him, then Cam, then Sweets - though possibly over the phone in Sweets' case - but Booth stopped short when he happened to glance in the direction of the platform.

* * *

"Director Cullen," Brennan greeted Booth's boss with some surprise as she removed her gloves, "What are you doing here?"

Cullen had by now become better accustomed to Dr. Brennan's abruptness and reacted as if she had instead cordially asked, "What brings you here, sir?" Well almost. He was, by nature, a bit abrupt himself.

"I was in the area," he said, "And I got the transfer papers for Booth. He mentioned he'd be here, so I thought I just drop them by for him since they're pretty time-sensitive."

"Transfer papers?" Brennan asked, her curiosity peaked, "Transfer of what? Case files? Remains? A prisoner?"

Cullen's eyes widened slightly and his mouth, which had opened slightly to answer at first, snapped shut. His eyes scanned the Institute anxiously - searching for Booth.

"Sir?" Bones asked.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Brennan," Cullen said, still scanning, desperate for Booth to appear before he made things any worse, "I'm not at liberty to say."

"Not at liberty?" she echoed, "Usually you'd say something like 'it's need-to-know.'"

Cullen sensed this wasn't going well, but could think of no response to stop or stall her.

"_You _brought up the topic of the transfer papers as if I _was _at liberty to know about them."

The FBI Director was a straight-talking administrator, not a dissembler. For that very reason he had been tasked only rarely as a field agent for undercover work in his younger days. _Where is Booth?_

"Yes, I did," Cullen conceded finally, "I made a mistake. I thought you were already aware of something that clearly you aren't and I'd very much appreciate it, Dr. Brennan, if you wouldn't press me on the matter since I am **not **at liberty to discuss it with you."

Part of Brennan wanted to honor his request, since he seemed so flustered by his error, but the wheels were turning now and she couldn't hold her tongue.

"What are the transfer papers for?" Bones asked.

He avoided her gaze and grew increasingly irritated as she continued pushing:

"Transfer papers for Booth? Booth is being transferred?"

Before she even knew she was scared, Bones felt her heart pound and a rush of adrenaline through her veins.

"Booth -" Cullen exhaled with some relief. Bones turned to see her partner approach. Given his proximity and expression, she surmised that he had heard her last question to Cullen.

The director stepped past her to offer Booth the papers, which he accepted.

"I'm sorry," Cullen apologized to him, "I assumed -"

"No, sir, it's my fault for putting it off. Don't worry about it. Thanks for bringing these by."

Cullen nodded as he handed over the paperwork, "I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Yes, sir," Booth replied.

"Dr. Brennan," Cullen stated, as his good-bye to Bones, and swiftly departed the Institute.

Bones stared at her partner, trying to process what all this meant. He, however, was unable to meet her eyes.

"Can we talk in your office?" he asked her.

She didn't answer right away, just studied his face and body language, willing herself to see the things he would, to understand what was going on underneath the surface. She couldn't. Finally, her silence had lasted too long. He looked up and she was able to lock eyes with him. Though his eyes conveyed worry, Bones immediately felt relief.

"Yeah," she answered him then. She knew that Booth had a rational explanation for these transfer papers. Now he would to explain it to her. There was nothing to fear.


	5. Chapter 5

"When will Parker and Rebecca move?" Brennan asked softly when Booth had finished.

"Not for another month and a half," Booth answered uncomfortably, "But, the Utah office wants me sooner than that."

"How soon?"

"Soon as possible. A couple weeks maybe."

A couple weeks. Bones couldn't imagine it.

"At first, I thought - when Cullen said 'transfer papers' - I assumed the Bureau must be splitting us up for some reason," Bones admitted, "Which was stupid. I don't suppose you fill out your own transfer papers when you're being transferred. Only when you're requesting to be."

"I'd never let them split us up, Bones," he told her firmly.

"Me neither," she agreed, "But you have to do this for Parker. I understand that for you it isn't a choice."

He looked into her eyes and she could see how grateful he was for her understanding.

"I've been meaning to tell you since the day Rebecca blindsided me with the news," he told her, dropping his gaze from hers, "I just couldn't. If Cullen or someone else hadn't slipped, I don't know how much longer it might have taken me."

"Why?" Bones asked, sounding slightly wounded , "Did you think I'd expect you to stay?"

"No," he said, smiling gently, "No, I knew you'd get it. I just… it wasn't real to me before - that I might actually leave. Even after I talked to Angela and was sure about what I had to do. Even after I asked Sully if he'd take my place as your partner -"

"That's what that was about?" Bones interjected, "Booth, no one can take your place."

He couldn't help grinning, appreciatively, "No one can take yours. But someone will replace me. And given the chance, I'd rather be sure you had a guy like Sully to watch your back than leave it up to the FBI to assign some stranger. You two worked well together before - _almost _as well as us -"

Bones opened her mouth to object, but he held up a hand to ask her to let him finish. She obliged.

"What I'm trying to say, Bones, is that even after recommending Sully to Cullen, and requesting the transfer papers for Salt Lake, it didn't feel real and I knew it wouldn't until I talked to you. So I kept putting it off."

"Why not until then?" she asked innocently.

He sighed.

"Probably because of all the people I'll miss if I - _when _I go… missing you is going to hurt the most."

His face was an open book. Reflexively, she looked away.

"Booth," she said, struggling with how to begin. He took her hand in his as she did and her voice caught in her throat.

"Booth," Temperance began again, looking at their hands and squeezing his, "It doesn't feel real to me yet. I can't begin to process the thought of… not working with you anymore."

"Yeah well," he said, smiling again, but with contradictory emotions fighting for control, "Enjoy that as long as you can."

Bones felt his hand tremble. She looked back up to meet his eyes, but they eluded her and he looked as if he were about to make an excuse to withdraw.

"Hey," she said, reaching a hand up to hold him behind his neck, and giving him a serious look, "You need a guy hug."

He laughed outright, and she found herself chuckling with him as they wrapped their arms around each other.

"You're doing the right thing, Booth."


	6. Chapter 6

Hodgins didn't have to look up to know that Angela had just come up beside him. Her attention was elsewhere, however, as he pretended his own remained on the computer screen in front of him. His best guess (guessing being a new reflex, thanks to Booth's influence) was that she had stopped to look in the direction of Brennan's office.

"He's telling her now," Angela said, trying to sound-matter-of-fact, but Jack could hear the dread underneath.

"Well, that's good, right?" Hodgins offered, still going through the motions of working, though not actually doing anything as they conversed.

"The door's opening," Angela whispered with urgency.

Hodgins didn't look up, knowing her interpretation of how they seemed would tell him more than his own eyes could.

"Definitely a heart to heart conversation," she murmured, "Booth looks shook up, but he's recovering quickly. So he must have told her."

"And Brennan?" Jack prompted when she didn't say.

Angela sighed.

"She looks about as emotional as if he told her that her favorite stapler was moving to Utah."

Jack sniggered at the description.

"It's not funny," she protested, "On the inside she's devastated."

"I wouldn't underestimate emotional attachment to one's stapler - didn't you ever see _Office Space_?"

He couldn't help making himself chuckle, though he knew it would disappoint and annoy her that he could make light of the situation.

"I don't suppose your lack of concern means the plot you hatched to keep them together has gotten anywhere?" she asked.

It was odd, he noticed, that she had started the question off with attitude, but softened considerably by the end of it. Maybe because she was hopeful, but he suspected it was because she felt guilty for pressuring him. She'd never believe he wasn't doing it for her. But that was the truth; he was doing it for Booth and Brennan. Making Angela happy too was just a bonus.

To answer her question, he finally stopped pretending to work and looked her in the eye."It will come together," he said.

"Hm," she retorted doubtfully, "I'm going to check on Brennan."

He smiled to himself as she stalked off. _Angela likes to think she has a monopoly on insight into Brennan Booth's relationship, _he mused. Hodgins had to admit, that when it came to intuition, in general, no one could touch her. Certainly, he also knew, she was one person Brennan couldn't keep her secrets from - even secrets she didn't realize she had. Still, when it came to empirical evidence - firsthand observations - of the bond between Booth and Brennan, he had her beat. Her intuition revealed only the tip of the iceberg compared to what Hodgins had actually witnessed.

Jack had been there when Booth, too weak and pained from being blown up to put on a bullet proof vest, went into that warehouse anyway and took Brennan's captor out. As if that wasn't enough, he didn't pause for assistance from Hodgins or any of the dozen or so other agents present to get Brennan down off that hook Kenton had bound her to. No, he limped over there on his own, pulled out her gag, and started lifting her bound hands over the hook. When it became apparent that he didn't have the strength left in his arms to do it, however, again, rather than asking for help from the other agents who had little else to do, Booth ducked his head under Brennan's arms to lift her off the hook with his whole body. Then he held her until she regained control of her emotions. All the while the physical pain he was in must have been incredible.

Jack had wondered later how Brennan would have reacted if the FBI saved her without Booth - if Booth had done the smart thing and stayed in the hospital while they handled it. Hodgins couldn't imagine Temperance Brennan breaking down like that in the arms of any other rescuer, not even after nearly having her eyes gouged out and being fed to dogs.

Though she had shed a few tears in front of him once, when they had been buried alive together. Still, she never panicked and it was her example that had kept his terror from overwhelming him in that car.

"Booth will find us," the empiricist had promised him.

She had revealed to him who she wanted to live most for, just as surely as he had to her.

And then there was the letter.

Somehow, after the explosion, her letter had ended up in the dirt near his right hand after they'd pulled him out of the car that might have been their grave. He had thought it might be his own letter at the time, but of course it was still safely tucked away in his pocket. In case it had been his, he had grabbed it and held it so tight, that even while unconscious, he still had it when he awoke in the hospital.

At first, he'd only read enough of it to realize it was Brennan's letter, rather than his. She hadn't disappointed him, it was addressed to Booth. He held on to it for some reason, neither returning it nor reading the rest, for nearly two years.

When Angela turned down his proposal for the second time, he found himself pulling out his copy of _Red Tape, White Bones _to retrieve the letter, and read:

_Dear Booth,_

_You did everything you could. Know that I knew that. How could I doubt it after you left the hospital to come after Kenton and I? That seemed like an impossible rescue; this one actually was. So you'd better not be doubting yourself - you did __everything__ you could. That's the first thing I want you to know._

_The second thing is that we didn't suffer. Suffocation __is__ like falling asleep - you know I'm no good at sugar-coating things. And if the air bag explosion fails - I mean when it failed (since you're reading this it must have) to blow us a hole to the surface, it killed us instantly. I'm sorry it didn't work, but we didn't feel it._

_Well, truthfully, Hodgins did suffer for a while from the injury to his leg from being run down by the gravedigger, but the incision I made released the pressure and the pain was bearable after that. Please assure Angela that he wasn't in great pain and also that he bravely suggested to me, given the severity of his injury, that he was willing to end his life so that I could have more air and a better chance for rescue. I told him I didn't want to survive that way and, in the end, by working together we managed to extend the air supply longer and increase our chance of survival better together than I could have alone. _

_If my letter should be found and his to Angela lost, please also tell her that he loved her. In his words, "I'm nuts about Angela. Over the moon. Stupid in love with her." Unless you think it would be easier on her not to know that. I think she'd prefer to know, but you'll know better than I the right thing to do, so you decide._

_The third is that blackmailing you to let me work in the field with you was the best decision I ever made. You know I don't exaggerate. I don't regret a minute of it. I wish our partnership wasn't coming to an end so soon. I've learned so much from you, not just about solving cases and putting away criminals, but about people, relationships, and motivations. Thank you. I know working with me hasn't always been easy, but we sure caught a lot of bad guys together._

_At this moment, I feel worse about the possibility that you may never read this letter than I do about dying. I should have communicated to you how much your friendship has meant to me before something like this happened. I hope your intuitive abilities already told you what I never verbalized._

_Get the bastard, Booth, but live your life too._

_Your partner,_

_Bones_

_P.S. A copy of my book should be in the car with us. In its pages is a piece of a parking pass from the bumper of the car that hit Hodgins._

Hardly a declaration of love, however, her letter had taken Jack back to how it had felt to be back in that car, to have his chance to pour out his heart to Angela stolen forever. In that car, he hadn't cared about marriage, just Angela. He would have considered himself blessed to be with her under any circumstances she chose. Living together, being married, none of that was as important as being there for her every day, loving her and being loved by her. And he still felt that way, he had realized. Sharing that realization, (inspired by Brennan's letter) with Angela had convinced her that she wanted to marry him too.

In the present, Jack sighed. He didn't regret it. None of it. He was a better person for having loved and lost Angela. The way he saw it, Booth and Brennan were fools to keep their feelings hidden from each other, particularly given the risks they face in the field. Brennan's buried feelings could have ended up literally buried forever. And now Booth had already died once! How many more times did they think they'd cheat death?

Hodgins looked up from his desk into space and frowned. He realized that he was really annoyed with them - Booth in particular. Dr. Brennan couldn't help being socially clueless. Booth, on the other hand, had all the social skills as well as the guts necessary to initiate a romantic relationship. Sweets had said Booth didn't want to rush _Brennan_, but that was crap. _Booth _was dragging his feet and, as an FBI agent, he should know better. Shit happens in the field and your chance to tell people you love them can be lost in an instant. Hodgins was so totally ready to track Booth down and tell him off - if only Booth didn't carry a gun.

_Since he does, _Hodgins thought, _I'll keep working on plan A._


	7. Chapter 7

"Hey," Angela said.

Brennan was seated at her desk as Angela entered, fingering something in her hands that Angela couldn't quite see until she reached the edge of Brennan's desk and she set it down.

"Is that a pig?" Angela asked, wondering about its significance - she knew immediately there had to be a Booth connection to it.

"It's a miniature, plastic representation of one, yes."

"I thought you and Booth were going to dinner," Angela said, deciding moving on from the mysterious plastic pig was best.

"Yeah," Brennan answered, turning half-way back to her computer, "I'm going to meet him in a few minutes. I have to finish up here first."

"Can't it wait til tomorrow?"

Brennan turned back to face her friend full on.

"Yes," she admitted, "But it can't wait two weeks, so I may as well get it out of the way now."

"Two weeks?"

"That's how soon Booth could be transferred. He said he talked to you about it. That's what you were getting at, wasn't it? And why you're here - because you know he just told me he's leaving D.C."

Angela grinned guiltily, while Brennan returned a small, knowing smile.

"Yeah," she confirmed, "I hadn't heard it would be that soon, though. God, I'm so sorry, Bren."

"You don't have anything to apologize for."

"I'm not apologizing," Angela explained, "I'm expressing my sympathy for you and Booth being in this utterly tragic circumstance. I can't believe he's going."

"I can't imagine him not going," said Brennan, trying to return to her computer. Angela, however, rounded the desk to continue addressing her friend face-to-face.

"He looked pretty shook up when he left."

"Did he?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he's pretty upset with Rebecca, I think," Brennan offered.

"That wasn't anger I saw on his face - it was sadness," her friend persisted.

"That's reasonable. He has to leave behind his home, his co-workers and friends -"

"And you," Angela interjected.

"I said co-workers and friends," Brennan pointed out slowly, with a trace of irritation underneath.

"You're _partners_," Angela argued, "The two of you have become even closer than you and I are."

"Angela, I really need to finish here, can we talk about this later?"

_I'm starting to get to her_, Angela thought, _Good. Let's push a few more buttons - for her own good._

"I can't understand how he could put off telling you about it for so long," Angela lied, "Didn't that piss you off at least a little?"

"I don't see what difference it makes," Brennan replied briskly, "Or why we have to discuss it this minute."

"Because," Angela said softly, as Brennan looked away from her and began typing on her computer, "You only have two weeks to tell Booth how important he is to you, how you feel about him. Your time is going to run out before you know it."

Brennan stonily continued working without answering.

"Okay, fine," Angela surrendered, for the moment, "Just think about what I said and if and when you need to talk about it, you know where to find me."


	8. Chapter 8

Days later at the diner…

"Hey," Sweets said, walking up to Booth, who sat alone at the counter.

"Hey," Booth said, looking up from his pie.

"Where's Dr. Brennan?" Sweets asked.

"We don't do everything together," Booth scoffed, "I can eat pie by myself."

Sweets gave him a doubtful look. _Not three days before you get on a plane and fly away from her, you can't, _Sweets thought.

"She's in the restroom, isn't she?" he asked.

Booth shrugged, "Like I said."

Sweets smiled.

"Well, I don't want to intrude on your time together -"

"Since when?" Booth retorted, but in a friendlier tone than usual.

"_But_," Sweets continued, "I wanted to say I'm sorry you're going. I'll miss our sessions together. I know you won't, but you two taught me a lot and I really appreciate your letting me study your partnership."

Lance looked up at the sound of heels hitting the floor to see Dr. Brennan returning.

"And if you feel like talking about anything before you go," Sweets said, half as loud and twice as fast as he was speaking before, "you know where to find me."

"I won't," Booth assured him as Brennan reached them.

Sweets nodded, "Hi, Dr. Brennan."

"Hi, Sweets."

"I was just on my way out," he said, stepping backward to go, "Have a good night."

"You too," Brennan answered.

"Hey Lance," Booth said before Sweets could turn around, "Thanks for the offer. And have a nice life."

Lance nodded, "Sure. You too."

After Sweets had gone, Bones asked: "What offer?"

"To talk to Parker about moving," Booth replied, lying so easily he surprised himself, "Help him deal with leaving his friends and worrying about fitting in in a new school - stuff like that."

"That was nice of him."

"Yeah," Booth sighed and smiled at her in agreement, "It was."

"But you can handle helping Parker with that on your own," she added.

Though he appreciated the vote of confidence in his parenting skills, he wondered how effective he would be helping Parker to cope, when he was doing so poorly at that himself. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't eat - except when he was with Bones, so it was a good thing she had been more willing than usual to go to meals with him since their days together were numbered.

"You okay?" Bones asked, seeing that he had put his fork down.

"Yeah," he answered, picking it back up and stabbing at his pie a little, "I'm just not as hungry as I thought."

"We could call it a night," she suggested."Nah," he sighed, cutting another bite and raising it off the plate, "I don't want to waste good pie."

She chuckled and shook her head, "You're gonna get sick."

"Am not," he shot back crossly with his mouth full.

_How can she be so at ease? _he asked himself bitterly, _Doesn't it bother her at all?_


	9. Chapter 9

"Agent Booth?"

Booth nodded as his greeting, took the seat across from Sweets desk and ignored the fact that Sweets eyes had bugged out so far they looked like they might fall to the floor.

"Is now an okay time?" Booth asked.

"Uh yes," said Sweets, reaching behind himself for his chair, afraid to take his eyes off Booth, "Yeah, for sure, no problem… um, to talk, right?"

"Yes, to talk," Booth said with a mildly sarcastic version of patience.

"About the move?" Sweets suggested, settling in his chair.

"Yes."

Sweets paused a moment. _Why wasn't Booth talking? Well_, he realized, because he's _Booth, of course_. _Should I cut to the chase and ask if he wants to talk about Dr. Brennan? _he wondered. He felt flustered for some reason - maybe because he rarely dealt with either of them one-on-one. Usually they helped him to draw each other out, whether they meant to or not.

"Sweets, it might help if you remember you're a genius and this is your domain," Booth offered, indicating the 'domain' with a outward sweeping of his hands.

"Right," Lance answered, "You just caught me off guard. I didn't expect you to come."

"Yeah, well…" Booth started, but trailed off.

Dr. Sweets cleared his throat, "What specifically about leaving would you like to talk about?"

"Bones."

"What about Dr. Brennan?" Sweets prompted him patiently, relieved that Booth was willing to admit that much.

"I… I told her that I'd miss her the most, when I go."

Sweets nodded, _Excellent! But then, of the two of them Booth is the one who is more open with his feelings - with her at least, if not with me. So, knowing Dr. Brennan, probably a lack of reciprocation is the issue._

"Actually, I said missing her would hurt the most," Booth corrected himself, looking downcast at the memory.

"And how did Dr. Brennan respond?"

"She uh," Booth thought back to that moment, still raw, "She hugged me, but she said it wasn't real to her yet. It hadn't really sunk in that I'd be going."

"I see," Sweets said, "Has she said or done anything since then to indicate that it has sunk in?"

"No, but I leave the day after tomorrow, so how could it not have by now?"

Sweets nodded, noting the physical indicators of Booth's suppressed frustration.

"When did it sink in for you?" Dr. Sweets asked, "When did you feel how much you would miss Dr. Brennan?"

Booth winced and shifted in his seat.

"Well, I knew right off that as my partner and my friend, that I'd miss her," he hedged.

"More than anyone else," Sweets echoed him.

"Yes," Booth confirmed testily, "I believe I just said that."

"But did you feel the _full _extent of the loss right away?"

"No," Booth answered solemnly.

"So when did you?"

"Fully?" Booth stalled.

Sweets just nodded.

"Probably when Cullen let it slip that I had requested transfer papers."

"And how did that feel?" asked Sweets.

"Bad," Booth shot back, his patience flagging, "Look Sweets, I didn't come here to talk about how _I _feel."

"You came here to talk about how Dr. Brennan feels," Sweets inferred smugly.

Booth didn't answer. He was pretty sure he just revealed something he'd regret.

"You poured your soul out to her and she gave you a hug," Lance offered sympathetically, giving voice to the disappointment Booth had tried to bury since then.

"Well," Booth replied softly, "It was a good hug."

Sweets smiled. _Still determined to defend his partner against anything, _he thought, _Even his own feelings_.

"But it wasn't the reciprocation that you were hoping for," Sweets maintained.

Booth shrugged.

"For what it's worth," Dr. Sweets told him, "I think it's unlikely Dr. Brennan has been able to fully process the knowledge that you're leaving yet."

"How do you know?" Booth asked, a glint of eagerness in his eyes."Well, I can't be sure," Sweets explained in a tone that suggested he was, in fact, sure, "But when your death was faked, she hadn't even begun to face her feelings about losing you right up until your actual funeral and before she had a chance, it was revealed that you were, in fact, alive."

"And then she hit me."

"Laid you _out_," Sweets chuckled. Booth gave a short, unamused laugh and Dr. Sweets cleared his throat again.

"So you don't think she's going to show how she feels about me leaving until - when?" Booth asked.

"If I had to guess, I'd say after you're gone. As long as you're here she can keep your leaving compartmentalized. But when your plane has taken off, the next day at work, when you don't show up with a case, or when you don't come by the lab to insist on getting lunch - your absence will eventually wear down her defenses. It's hard to say how soon."

"That's not healthy, right?" Booth asked, pouncing on an excuse to enlist the psychiatrist's help.

Sweets smiled slightly and cocked his head to one side.

"What's not healthy?"

"You know," Booth said, momentarily not sure what he had meant, "To - to - to go through that alone. It'd be better if she were able to let it out before I go."

"Well, just because you're not there doesn't mean she'd have to go through it alone…would it?" Sweets asked. _Now we're getting somewhere_, he thought.

"Well, there's Angela," Booth conceded, "But I'm going through losing my partner too. So I'd be better able to understand and it'd be good for both of us, right?"

"Agent Booth, I have to ask, and I hope you'll take a moment to think about this before you answer - is it that you know what she'll be going through, or that you _want _to know what she'll be going through?"

"What?" Booth asked with exaggerated exasperation, to indicate that he did not at all catch what Sweets was accusing him of, which he didn't, but he knew he was being accused of something.

"A moment ago you asked me to predict when Dr. Brennan would 'show' how she feels about your leaving. Are you so concerned because you want to help Dr. Brennan with what she's going through - losing her partner - or because you want to _know _what she's going through, that is to say, how much she'll miss you? If she'll miss you as much as you'll miss her, perhaps?"

"Hey, I only want to help Bones," Booth huffed, "Be there for her."

"Really?"

Booth shifted again and glanced away from Sweets' penetrating gaze.

"Yes."

"You're lying," Sweets told him, "To me and yourself. And neither one of us believes you."

Booth continued to look away from Sweets and shook his head in annoyance.

"Still, if you want, I'll give you my advice on how to get Dr. Brennan to confront her feelings before you leave," Sweets said, "Because I do think it would be good for her."

Booth's head jerked back towards the young doctor.

"You do?" _Then what the hell were you waiting for? _Booth thought irritably.

Sweets nodded that he did.

"How?" Booth pressed him.

"Tell her you love her."

Booth blinked.

"She knows that," he argued weakly.

"No," Sweets persisted, "I'll be more clear: you need to tell her you're _in _love with her; that you believe she is the one person you're meant to spend the rest of your life with."

"You want me to what - to manipulate her?" Booth said his voice rising in what Sweets knew to be fear.

"No Booth, I'm advising you tell her the _truth_," Lance shot back, slightly offended. Then, composing himself, Sweets added, "If you want her to be honest with you, you need to be honest with her."

Booth just looked at Sweets for a few moments, deciding something. Then he stood and answered softly:

"I already was."

Lance sighed as Booth left as abruptly as he had come in.


	10. Chapter 10

"Hey Booth, are you going by Brennan's office?" Cam asked.

"Yeah, I was, why?" Booth asked.

"I've got a conference call with Goodman and some other big shots - like right now," she explained, "But I need Brennan's report. She said she left it on her computer and still hasn't gotten around to bringing it to me and I need it for the call. Can you go in there and get it from her while I head to my office?"

"What am I a messenger boy?"

"I don't care who brings it," Cam told him, "but I need it and you're headed to her office anyway, right?"

"_Fine_," he growled, "I'll tell her."

"Thank you," she shot back.

Hodgins looked up from his microscope after Booth had left. Cam remained, continuing the paperwork she had been doing before Booth had arrived.

"Uh, Cam?" Hodgins asked, "Didn't you say the conference call was now?"

"Did I?" she asked.

"Ye-es, which is why you insisted you needed Booth to go fetch Brennan's report for you. Are you having a Memento moment?"

"Well," Cam sighed, "if Booth looks on Brennan's computer for a report, like I asked, what he sees will make him forget all about what I said too."

"What are you talking about, you crazy person?" asked a highly amused Jack.

Cam smiled cryptically.

"There's no conference call?" Hodgins guessed, hoping she'd start filling in the blanks for him.

"No there is not."

"So… you want him to find something _else _on Brennan's computer?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"But what if Brennan is there and she reveals that said report doesn't even exist?"

Cam looked at her watch.

"She will not be there for at least five more minutes."

"Where is she?" he pressed.

"Early lunch with Angela."

"Ohhh, so this is Angela's doing, which means it must be a plot to bring Booth and Brennan together?"

Cam shrugged innocently.

"Hey, what happened to having a little faith in them?" Jack demanded playfully.

"Oh, I still have faith in them," Cam maintained, "Did Angela tell you Brennan's secretly been looking for work in Utah?"

"Yeah," he confirmed while chuckling over how cute that was, "why?"

"Well, I have faith that her following him to Utah will say it all and then Booth will finally feel secure enough to take the next step."

"So… I don't get it. Why are you playing sidekick to Angela in her matchmaking scheme if you think they'll get together on their own?"

"Because if they don't hook up til Utah, we're all going to miss it!"

"Ahh haa," Jack chuckled some more, finally getting it.

"After all this time, we miss out on their happily ever after?" Cam continued, "I don't think so! Therefore, I am more than willing to help Angela try to speed things along so we have a chance to see the fireworks."

"Good call." Then pushing away his work, he added, "Okay, now you have to tell me - what's he going to find on her computer?"

Cam smiled and obliged.

Booth walked grumpily into Bones' office. Seeing that it was empty did not help. He wouldn't really have minded running the report to Cam for Bones if it gave him an excuse to hang around the lab. Perhaps she would be back by the time he got back from taking Cam the report, he thought, his spirits rising slightly. He stepped over to the computer to look for it.

When Cam said it was on the computer he had initially imagined it was laying on the keyboard or something, but there was no report there or nearby, so perhaps Bones had meant on the computer as in still in the computer.

"Am I supposed to print it out, or e-mail it, or what?" Booth muttered to himself as he moved the mouse to dissolve the screensaver.

Bones had left a document, but it didn't look like a report, so he started to scan it's contents to be sure it was what Cam needed.

Booth's eyes widened as he read and he had to sit in her chair. His mouth dropped open in slow motion as he became more and more certain of what he was reading. And then he smiled a smile that lit up the room even if there was no one there to see it. The report for Cam completely forgotten, he got up and left.

A minute later, Bones returned with Angela from their lunch. Brennan did not notice Angela scan the office, as if expecting someone to be there, or her sudden dismay when there wasn't.

"Thanks for lunch, Bren," Angela told her, "I need to go see Cam about something. See ya later."

"Okay, see ya," Bones said, as she wondered if , without realizing it, she had bumped her computer before sitting at her desk as the screensaver should have been on.


	11. Chapter 11

When there was a knock at her door at eleven that night, Brennan smiled. For a moment she was just glad that he had come at all and that he was a little earlier than usual. By the time she opened the door to him, however, she was a little less pleased."Hey," he said. He was smiling, and displaying Wong Foo's in the usual way, but something was off. He was… less exuberant. But then, so was she.

"Come on in," she told him, and he followed her towards the kitchen.

"I thought you were going to come by the lab," she said.

"I did," he answered, unloading the cartons of food while she got the plates, "But you were already out to lunch with Angela and I had to take care of some things."

"I know you came by then," Brennan protested, "But I thought you'd come back later."

"I would have," Booth told her, "But there was a lot of last minute stuff to do for… tomorrow."

Bones picked up the plates and set them on the table without answering.

"I'm not hungry," she declared.

He looked down at the cartons and half-sighed, half-chuckled, "Neither am I."

"So…" she said.

He sighed again, this time a deep breath to summon up some courage.

"We could talk," he said and gestured towards her couch.

"Okay," she answered agreeably, but with a hint of suspicion.

"You done any writing lately?" he asked.

"I've been kind of blocked," she replied shortly.

"Maybe a change of scene would help," Booth suggested, "You could take some time off. Visit me in Utah and write. How long does it take to write one of those? Six months?"

Bones laughed softly.

"Actually I wrote _Bred In The Bone _in less than a month."

"Oh…well, since you're blocked it will take longer," Booth said with a charming smirk. _How can a smirk be charming? _Bones wondered as she looked at him.

"Would you?" he asked, bringing her back from her thoughts about charm and smirking.

"Would I what?"

"Visit me in Utah?"

"Yeah," she answered with less enthusiasm than Booth was aiming for, "Absolutely."

"I know you don't like leaving the Jeffersonian, unless its for genocide or zillion year old civilizations, but -"

"Of course, I'll come," Bones assured him more forcefully this time. _Just not to stay, _she thought sadly.

"The Jeffersonian is pretty much one of a kind, isn't it? Even places like Harvard, Oxford, don't really compare."

"They all have their own strengths and weaknesses," Brennan replied, confused by his line of inquiry, "but by most measurements the Jeffersonian outperforms all other instituitions of its kind."

"So you'd probably be happy there the rest of your career?"

"Yeah, probably."

_The job search must not be going well, _Booth realized from her increasingly dejected attitude, _all the more reason to quit stalling. _

"Then why apply to basement jobs out west?" he asked.

"What?"

He grinned guiltily and did his best to sound apologetic, "When you were at lunch, I went to your office, looking for something Cam said she needed from your desk -"

"What?" she interjected.

"A report, but I'm pretty sure she made that up -"

"Why?" she interrupted again.

"So that I would _inadvertently _trespassed on your privacy and see the letter of interest you were working on, which I did. Care to explain?"

"I just," she began, then began again, "I thought with you gone Cullen might try to relegate me back to lab work only. I'd really miss fieldwork if he did, so I thought I would see what's out there."

"You did it because you'll miss the fieldwork too much?" he echoed in a teasing tone.

She had to work hard not to laugh at herself as she answered, "Yeah."

"I took care of that, remember? Sully's not going to leave you behind."

They held one another's gaze, each thinking the same thing.

"Bones-"

"Booth-"

Booth jumped in quickly to break their synchronization.

"You first," he told her. For a moment it looked like she didn't want to anymore, but it was too hard to turn down his chivalry.

"My father gave me some advice once," she recalled, then admonished herself, "Advice from a thief and a murderer, I know, but ever since you told me about moving to Utah, I haven't been able to get his words out of my head."

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'If you find somebody that you can trust, hang on to 'em.'"

"You have lots of people in your life that you can trust, Temperance" Booth pointed out.

"Not like you," she countered, her eyes beginning to warm with tears. _Didn't matter, _she thought, _she couldn't hold on to him if no one would hire her for being 'over-qualified.' How can anyone be __**over-**__qualified for anything anyway?_

"Bones, look, there's something you need to know, if you're going to go to all this to keep our partnership together -"

She sighed, about to pour out to him how all her attempts to follow him to Utah were for nothing and that she didn't know what else to do, but he pressed on too quickly with what he was saying -

"My feelings for you are no longer partner-appropriate. So, ah, you should be prepared that if it works and you get a job in Utah and we can make you an consultant on cases, you're going to have to help me hide it from the Bureau that I'm, basically, well, beyond in love with you, or they're never going to let us work together and you'll have left the Jeffersonian for nuh -"

"Wait, wait, wait, _stop!_" she tried to interrupt his rambling. When her words didn't stop him she put a hand on his chest; that silenced him instantly. Unfortunately, she then found herself at a complete loss for words.

"I'm waiting, Bones," he promised, encouragingly.

She frowned and just started to say the first words that came into her head. She didn't yet know how to translate what was pounding in her heart.

"First of all, I've already been turned down by all but one of the jobs I could find out there. And that one is going to say what they all say, that they'd like to hire me, but I'm 'over-qualified.' So it won't even be an issue, unfortunately. Second, it's not possible to be 'beyond in love' with someone - one is just in love, if such a state even exists, but there's no '_beyond _in love.' It's like saying someone is 'over-qualified' - one is either qualified or one is not. What 'over-qualified' really means is that the potential employer thinks they can't pay you enough to keep you there long-term -"

She was stabbing his chest with her forefinger now for emphasis, but paused in her tirade as he took hold of her hand and held it to his chest.

"We'll figure it out," he told her seriously, understanding instinctively that she had begun rambling out of fear of her emotions, "That is, if there's a third thing you were going to tell me. Something about why you were willing to give up the Jeffersonian for Utah. Something of a reciprocal nature?"

"What about the line?" Brennan found herself blurting out.

Her mouth fell open in surprise at her own words. She hadn't wanted to ask it, to remind him of it if he had forgotten somehow. She had wanted to reciprocate.

_What did I bring up the line for? _she thought miserably.

Booth, however, actually smiled a little. He didn't look happy exactly, but at least he hadn't been hurt by her evasion.

"Temperance," he replied, reminding her in a soft voice, "Three years ago in New Orleans, I removed evidence, your mother's earring, that linked you to a crime scene. A year later, I let your father, a suspected murderer, escape with your brother rather than shoot him in front of you. When your brother showed up at my office door, I let you convince me to take him to see his stepdaughter in the hospital before arresting him. _Then _I pulled every string I could to get him leniency.

"Also," he pointed out with finality, and a mischievous grin, "I hug you every chance I get."

A short chuckle escaped her lips.

"And that's not even everything," he assured her.

Brennan's brow furrowed and her lips pressed tightly together as she tried to imagine what she could possibly answer to all of that. _What have I done for him that even comes close to matching all he's done for me?_ she thought.

"I somersaulted over that line a long time ago," he whispered, "I couldn't help it."

He searched her face anxiously as he awaited her response. Looking into his eyes, it finally dawned on her how much he needed to hear her say it. No matter how awkward or inadequate it came out, she had to try.

"I was trying to follow you, " she admitted, but her voice cracked and went suddenly weak, "because, I suppose, _figuratively _speaking, I'm beyond in love with you too and I can't compartmentalize -"

Their eyes met and they reached for each other at the same time, held each other, and Bones was finally able to shed tears over the thought of losing him.

"You've got me, Bones," he whispered, "No matter where I am. Okay?"

She didn't answer, she was concentrating too hard on not sobbing into his shoulder like a child. Her silence, however, made him pull back and gently tilt her head to look him in the eye.

"Okay?" he repeated, carefully wiping tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.

"Okay," she said, gazing into his warm, reassuring brown eyes. Pulled in by her luminous blue ones, spilling over with tears, he leaned in and kissed her with all the intensity of the torment he'd felt since he'd had to face the possibility of leaving her. She responded with all the passion the fear of losing him evoked in her.

* * *

His cell phone woke her up the next morning. They hadn't left the couch and his chest had been her pillow. She rubbed it as she attempted to wake him."Booth," she said. He groaned sleepily. "Booth - _phone_."

He sighed, but didn't open his eyes. So she reached into his pocket for him - "Hey now!" he exclaimed, starting to awaken then. Bones looked at the phone.

"It's Rebecca," she said, "You'd better answer."

He took it from her, brought the phone to his ear with one hand and caressed her cheek with the other.

"Hey Rebecca," he said unenthusiastically.

"Seely, hi… oh God, I don't know how to say this."

"Is everything alright?" he asked, becoming concerned. Her tone didn't sound like an emergency, but he couldn't guess what else was going on.

"Parker's fine," she assured him, knowing what his first thought would be, "Things are… unbelievable. Possibly even fantastic, depending on how you feel about it."

"How I feel about what?" he asked, wishing she'd get it over with so he could get back to reveling in the fact that he had just woken up with Bones in his arms.

"Look, I'm so sorry to jerk you around like this, but Joe didn't even apply for the position, someone high up recommended him and he got the call an hour ago, they don't even want to interview him first, and it's - it's unbelievable, they're offering him twice as much for the same job and its -"

Booth panicked and sat up on his elbows.

"Rebecca, you can't do this to me, I've already submitted the transfer! I leave today!"

"What's going on?" Bones asked, but Rebecca was talking again.

"Seely, let me finish - its in Maryland! He could take this job in Maryland instead of Utah."

Booth stared and Bones in shock.

"What?" Bones demanded in a whisper, but by then Booth's face had lit up and he looked ready to laugh, so she relaxed somewhat. Instead of laughing, however, he just closed his eyes and tilted his head back in relief."Seely?"

"Yeah," he said to Rebecca, "I'm still here."

"We understand it might be too late. If you can't or don't want to get out of your transfer to Utah, Joe will turn down Maryland and take the first job. We just thought, if it wasn't too late, you'd be happier staying in D.C."

"You are not too late. You tell Joe to call them back right now and take the job in Maryland. I'll figure it out."

"Seriously! Oh my God! Joe - he's says to take the job -"

There was a lot of squealing and happy voices in the background as Booth flipped off the call.

He looked at Bones. She had heard him say "tell Joe to take the Job in Maryland," so she knew, but he could see in her face that she was afraid to believe it.

"Can't get rid of me," he said, beaming at her.

She gasped with joyful surprise and he cupped her face in his hands and they kissed long and deep.


	12. Chapter 12

Cam and Angela stood watching Booth and Brennan chatting away outside her office, like they didn't have a care in the world.

"He is leaving today, right?" Cam queried.

"Far as I know," Ange replied, utterly confused.

"You get the feeling we missed something?" Cam asked her. But it was Hodgins, apparently in earshot, who came up behind them and answered:

"Joe took the job," he said. Angela gave a little squeal of joy and whirled around to hug him. Jack managed to accept it without regret or awkwardness, even chuckled, sharing in her delight.

Meanwhile, Cam had no idea what this meant.

"What? Tell me," she pleaded.

"Hodgins used his ridiculous amounts of power and influence in the business world to get Rebecca's husband a beyond kick-ass job offer in Maryland - and he took it! Which means -"

"Booth gets to stay?" Cam asked in amazement.

"Looks like it," Hodgins said, gesturing towards the happy partners, "I was a little worried it would be too late for him to get out of the transfer. But he doesn't look worried."

"Jack," Angela said, before whirling away to her office, "You are my hero."

He smiled and went back to work as well. But Cam remained, watching Booth follow Brennan into her office.

"There's something else, we're missing," she said, though there was no one left to hear, "And I'm betting it was fireworks."


	13. Chapter 13

"Bones," he said, lowering his voice - irrationally, Brennan noted, since they were now alone in her office with the door closed - "You realize that now that I'm not leaving we're actually in a pretty tough spot."

"I haven't realized anything of the kind," she replied, thinking for the first time that he was very cute when he was worried, but quickly concluding this made evolutionarily sense - that signs of sensitivity, or protectiveness, in a male would elicit a feelings of attraction from a female of the same species. For once, however, she kept these thoughts to herself and just enjoyed the feeling.

"Because," Booth said, attempting to convey the gravity of the situation, "Now we have to keep our feelings a secret from everyone if we want to keep working together."

"We've been doing that for quite a while already, haven't we?" she asked with a roguish smile.

Booth was immediately sidetracked.

"Well, _I _sure have," he proclaimed, "How long have you been hiding feelings for me?"

"Why?" she posed, evasively, "Is it a contest?"

"I remember the exact moment I had to start hiding it," he offered, enticing her to share hers.

"When?"

"When did you?" he countered.

"I'm not sure there was one singular moment," she replied uncertainly, "My feelings crept up gradually."

"But if you were actively hiding your feelings from others," Booth reasoned, "There must have been a moment when you realized they needed hiding. And that moment isn't something you forget."

She met his searching gaze resolutely, but unconsciously bit her lip in hesitation. He just kept right on staring with a big stupid grin on his face.

Brennan's cell phone rang.

"Voicemail!" Booth bit out in a whisper, but she was already answering it.

"Brennan."

Booth sighed and began to pace her office as she listened to whatever the caller had to say.

"But Sully I don't -" she started, but apparently Agent Sully cut her off and she listened with growing consternation. Booth stepped closer as if hoping to hear what Sully was saying."I don't understand - why would Cullen insist on that when you've only had the case a few hours?" Brennan asked, "Why can't he just give it to Booth and I? Cullen must know Booth is staying in D.C."

"Let me talk to him," Booth half-whispered, looking cute again.

Bones shot him a look that said, 'don't be ridiculous,' then continued to Sully, "Okay, I understand - I mean, I don't, but I understand you're just following orders and I'll tell Booth what Cullen said. See you soon."

"What the hell was all that about?" Booth asked her.

"Sully and I have been assigned a case."

"But I'm back - Cullen knows that. _He _did me the monumental favor of getting me out of my transfer. Why would he give the case to Sully?"

Bones shook her head, "Sully doesn't know. He assumed, when he heard through the vineyard that you were staying that we'd be partners again -"

"Vineyard? Through the grapevine, Bones, Marvin Gaye," Booth interjected, snapping his fingers and half singing the title, "'Heard It Through the Grapevine'…"

"Marvin from Authentications told him?" Bones asked, utterly lost, "He has connections to the FBI? Why are you dancing?"

Booth shook his head, "Let's just let that one go for now - why isn't the case coming to you and me instead of you and him?"

"Cullen told Sully he wanted to keep him on it since he had already begun investigating. But Sully's only been on it since this morning."

"That doesn't make any sense. I'll go talk to Cullen."

"Good," Bones added, "because Cullen told Sully to send you to his office if you had a problem with it."

Booth manufactured a long rolling chuckle that clearly confirmed he most certainly did have a problem with it.

"I'll come with you," Bones informed him.

Booth nodded, "Let's go."

On their way out, Booth asked:

"Marvin in Authentications is gay too? He and that guy Neil would make a cute couple."

"_I_ didn't say Marvin was gay, _you _did. I have no knowledge either way."

"No, Bones, Marvin Gaye is a singer…"


	14. Chapter 14

As the elevator doors opened, Booth and Brennan were met by a familiar face. His eyes, however, were much wider than usual upon seeing them.

"Hi Sweets," Booth said briskly, as he began to step around him. Brennan was following suit, but Sweets startled them both by stepping quickly in front of Booth and putting a hand up to stop him.

"Get back in - _please_," he told them, sounding desperate, "We have to talk - quick!"

"What?" - Booth had no time for this, but Bones grabbed his arm to hold him back as Sweets ducked into the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor.

"Please, trust me," he begged.

Bones pulled Booth the rest of the way into the elevator so that the doors could shut.

"This better be good, Sweets," Booth threatened. Behind Booth's annoyance was fear. He had revealed a good deal too much about his feelings for Bones to Sweets when he thought he would be leaving for Utah. Sweets had accused Booth of being in love with her and clearly hadn't believed Booth's denial. The FBI would go by what Sweets believed, not what he actually told Sweets.

Now here the Doogie Howser of psychiatry was, quite possibly coming directly from a meeting with Cullen on the same day the director had inexplicably split he and Bones up. If his suspicions were accurate, Sweets had just made a big mistake getting into an elevator alone with them.

"You two were going to see Cullen together?" Sweets guessed.

"Yes, why?" Bones answered him, while Booth carefully scrutinized the Sweets' body language.

"Bad idea," he warned them gravely.

"Why?" Brennan asked, "Do you know what's going on? Why he's having me work on a case with Agent Sullivan instead of Booth?"

"Yes," Sweets answered, glancing at Booth, "And Agent Booth's already guessed it, if you haven't."

Bones looked to Booth to share, but his eyes were still boring into Sweets.

"You told Cullen what we talked about," Booth demanded softly, "And what you thought, didn't you?"

The elevator was about to reach the first floor, so Bones quickly pressed the button for the basement to give them more time.

"No!" Sweets insisted, "He called me in because he had concerns of his own."

"Which you corroborated," Booth wearily assumed. He had to admit to himself that it wasn't Sweets' fault if other people, like Cullen, had noticed. He knew he had let his guard down when he thought his partnership with Bones was over for good and she may have done the same, in her own way.

"So what now," Booth asked, "Are we being split up?"

The elevator had reached the basement parking garage just then. The three stepped out, saw that they were alone and continued their discussion.

"I argued for keeping you two together," Sweets assured them, looking to Booth and then Brennan for signs they believed him, "But Cullen's primary concern, that you two have become too close, is difficult to refute with any real evidence. So he's sort of putting you on a probationary separation."

Booth and Bones shared a worried glance.

"I dished out all my best psychobabble," Sweets continued, "But he wants a second opinion. He's calling Dr. Gordon Wyatt in to evaluate your partnership."

"Well, we liked Wyatt," Bones offered optimistically. But Booth looked wary.

"We liked him because he was good, which, in this case, is bad."

"But last time he concluded that I didn't choose you over Sully," she pointed out, "I chose a life of purpose over Sully. He didn't think there was anything between us then."

Sweets raised an interested eyebrow.

"Bones!" Booth hissed a warning, shooting a meaningful look at Sweets.

"What?" she asked. Booth hadn't mentioned to her his meeting with Sweets the other day yet. The best she could surmise from Booth's anxiety over Sweets talking to Cullen about them was that Booth had _fully _admitted his feelings to Sweets.

But Lance wasn't interested in being proven right or wrong at that moment. In fact, the news that Bones and Agent Sullivan had been involved in the past was what had caught his attention more than anything else.

"Look guys, I'm in mega trouble if it gets out that I warned you about Cullen and Wyatt," he told them, anxiously moving their clandestine conversation along, "Just trust me that you don't want to approach Cullen together. Booth should still go see him, to ask what's up with him being cut out of the case, because that's an understandable reaction. But the harder you push Cullen to put you two back together, the more he'll resist and think he's right to split you guys up - permanently.

"Now, I'm going to take the stairs and go back to work. Remember - we _never _had this conversation, or I'm toast."

They nodded and he went. They turned to each other.

"I'll go see Sully about the case while you talk to Cullen?" she suggested.

"Yeah," Booth breathed, pressing for the elevator.

"One case apart won't be so bad," Bones said.

"Yeah," Booth agreed, as the doors opened, "That's all it will be."


	15. Chapter 15

"Agent Booth," Director Cullen greeted him stiffly as Booth entered his office, "Have a seat."

"Thank you, sir," Booth knew better than to assume that a stiff greeting from Cullen had anything to do with him. Cullen had many more concerns on his plate than just he and Bones. He sat while his boss closed the file he held in front of him and took his seat as well.

"What brings you here?" his boss asked.

_Now to follow Sweets' advice_, Booth thought.

"First, to thank you again, sir, for being so accommodating to my family situation and getting me out of that transfer."

"I was glad to be able to keep you here, Agent Booth," Cullen replied coolly. He had said as much over the phone that morning - only then he had sounded like he meant it. "But you'll owe me one," the deputy director added.

"Absolutely, sir," Booth agreed, believing now that the stiffness was precisely about him and Bones.

"Why else are you here?" Cullen asked.

"Well, as you can probably guess, sir," Booth answered carefully, "Dr. Brennan informed me that she and Agent Sullivan were assigned a case today and he passed along to her and she to me, that I should speak to you about why that is."

"Partly because we only just learned you'd be staying on in D.C. when the remains were discovered and the case assigned."

Cullen paused, expecting Booth to interject, but Booth merely nodded as if he found that explanation reasonable. He even held his tongue from asking what the other factors were.

"And partly," Cullen continued, eyeing Booth suspiciously, "Because I have concerns about your continued partnership with Dr. Brennan."

Booth made sure to portray a quizzical expression, but to respond deferentially:

"May I ask the nature of your concerns, sir?"

"The two of you have done excellent work, there's no denying that," Cullen answered, "And part of that comes from your having worked closely together for some years now. But sometimes when partners get close, they can get too close. They socialize when they should be focused on investigating, they joke when they should be vigilant - "

"Sir, with all due respect, Dr. Brennan and I have a friendship, it's true, but it has _never _compromised the work. Brennan in particular - you know how she is - nothing distracts her -"

"_Sometimes_," Cullen continued with a hard glare at Booth for his interruption, "partners who have been together too long become _**overly**_-protective - "

The Director picked up the file he had been looking at and thwapped it down hard in front of Booth.

"I'm not worried about Dr. Brennan's attachment anywhere near as much as I am about _yours_."

Booth picked up the file and paged through it.

"Threatening the life of Roberto Ortez in broad daylight without backup," Cullen recited, leaning over his desk, as Booth scanned the contents, "Failing to arrest her father once, then letting him kick the crap out of you first when you finally did get him -"

"He didn't -"

"_Keep _reading," the director raised his voice warningly, "I'm not finished. Taking her brother to the hospital to see his girlfriend before arresting him -"

Booth couldn't read the file. It took all his willpower to let the director continue without trying to defend himself. But Cullen quickly found himself too fed up with his list to continue -

"What do you have to say for yourself Agent Booth?"

Booth opened his mouth to speak, but Sweets had not prepared him for this at all. Maybe Cullen had kept the depth of his concerns close to the vest. He quickly glanced through the rest of the file.

"None of these instances are very recent, sir," Booth finally ventured, Cullen shot him sour look in response, "Which is no excuse for my actions, however, I think the partners' therapy Bones and I have attended with Dr. Sweets has helped me a great deal with my tendency to be over-protective."

He dared a quick glance at Cullen to see if that might have worked. To his relief Cullen seemed to be considering it.

"They may not have occurred recently," Cullen pointed out, "But a couple of them only came to my attention recently. Part of me was relieved when you requested the transfer because I wasn't looking forward to this conversation. I've been concerned about this trend for quite some time and made a point of making Dr. Sweets aware of it when your sessions with him first began."

Booth did his best to look submissive as Cullen paused.

"I'm glad to hear you feel he's helped you to make progress on it. However, to be safe, I feel it's best that you and Dr. Brennan take a break from one another."

Booth, while keeping a calm exterior, frantically tried to decide if it would be worse to ask 'how long of a break?' and sound too eager or to not ask at all and tip Cullen off that he was acting too much out of character. While he was trying to decide, however, his boss had more to say.

"Also, Dr. Wyatt will be meeting with you and Dr. Brennan individually and providing me with his assessment of your partnership."

Agent Booth creased his brow, and expertly feigned a mild surprise.

"Why not Dr. Sweets?" Booth asked innocently, "I mean, he's already basically an expert on our partnership. I would think he could provide you with an assessment immediately."

"Yes, I'm aware of Dr. Sweets' expertise. As I understand it, he is doing a book on you and Dr. Brennan," Cullen noted with a frown, "That presents a conflict of interest. No partnership means no book. Therefore, with all due respect to Dr. Sweets, I think a second opinion is necessary."

"Of course," Booth acknowledged, "Dr. Wyatt is a good guy - you know, for a shrink."

"Good," Cullen replied tersely, "You'll be hearing from him soon. That will be all, Agent Booth."

"Thank you, sir."


	16. Chapter 16

"You're not going to have something to eat?" Bones asked as the waitress left them at their usual table at the Royal Diner.

"Nah," he said, "I'll wait til my meeting with Wyatt. He's gonna meet me here."

There was a long pause as Booth thought with dread about his meeting with Wyatt. He hadn't been able to bring himself to tell Bones about Cullen's file on all the ways he'd screwed up.

"One of us has to go first," Bones said, breaking the silence.

"With Wyatt?" he asked.

"No," she said lowering her voice and sounding a little embarrassed, "I thought we were going to share, you know, when we each realized we had feelings for each other."

Booth smiled broadly, pleased to discover she had been much more interested in that conversation than she had let on.

"Ladies first," Booth answered agreeably to something she hadn't agreed to.

"That is an antiquated turn of phrase that implies an inequitable relationship between men and women," she chided him.

He laughed.

"Fine," he replied, "In a relationship of equals you _still _go first, because I went first last time, when I told you I loved you first."

He grinned triumphantly. She glared at him, but had to concede to his point.

"Alright," she acquiesced, "It was when you made the 'crappy sex' argument."

"What?" Booth asked, forgetting to use his inside voice. This did not sound like a romantic moment.

"We were here after closing the case with the horse-and-rider sexual role-players," she set the scene to remind him, "You declared that their sex had to be 'crappy,' and I challenged you to defend your assumption. You leaned over the table, and made the most… beautiful speech I'd ever heard about the object of love-making being more than satisfying physical appetites; it was about attempting the impossible, becoming one with your partner… and, more important than the sentimental allure of your claim, you had also made the only _convincing _argument I'd ever heard on the subject.

"After that it was pretty difficult to ignore non-platonic thoughts about you."

"Wow," he said, gazing into her eyes.

"What?" she asked, a small smile playing on her lips

"I've been hiding my feelings a _lot _longer than you," he proclaimed, leaning back in his chair with a satisfied grin. Her smile quickly turned to a frown, while he chuckled at her.

"But not very well," she retorted smartly.

"Don't give me that - you didn't know!"

"Are you sure about that?" she challenged.

"Okay, then smarty-pants," he shot back in almost a whisper, having realized their voices had risen too loud for a public place so near the Jeffersonian, "when did I fall for you?"

_Oh, that completely backfired, _Bones thought.

"Hold on," she protested, "you can't change the rules, you didn't have to guess when my moment was."

"But _I_ didn't get all cocky and imply that I knew. Now you give me your best guess and then I'll tell you if you were right or not."

She paused to think, but not for long.

"When I saved you from Gallagher," she threw out a guess, knowing that rescue wasn't a likely way to an alpha male's heart, but also preferring to guess too early rather than too late.

He laughed, as if to confirm her suspicion that she had supposed far too early, but Bones didn't care. She just wanted him to tell her the story of when and how it actually happened.

"_Much _earlier," he said smugly.

"No way," she rejoined.

"Yes way," he confirmed, grinning from ear to ear.

"You're lying," she decided.

"I am not," he insisted indignantly.

"But just before that you had encouraged me to go off with Sully," she pointed out.

"Because I cared about you and the two of you seemed so god-damned happy together."

"Booth, do you realize how close I came to going with him because of _your _encouragement?"

"Well, you just admitted you didn't have feelings for me yet, which was the assumption I was operating under, so I don't see how you can be mad at me."

"Well, I had feelings for you then, I just hadn't accepted them as significant yet."

"Then how could you expect me to know better?" he laughed.

"You always claim to know what I'm feeling better than I do," she threw back at him.

"Touche," he conceded, smiling yet again, "Come on, we need to leave so I can come back to meet Wyatt."

"Hold on, it's your turn, how much earlier was it?" Temperance half-whined.

"You can keep guessing, but right now we really need to go," he maintained, heading for the door.

"You have at least another half hour and I'm not going to keep guessing - that's incredibly unfair!" she exclaimed, pursuing him.

He stopped abruptly and turned back to face her, tenderly.

"I'll tell you, in detail, tonight," he promised softly, "Unless you guess right before then."

"I'm _not _guessing," she insisted, looking up at him with displeasure.

He would have leaned down to kiss her goodbye then, if he could have. She saw it in his eyes and yielded slightly, giving him a sad smile to show him she would have liked that as well.

"You don't think maybe we ought to consider the benefits of _not _working together anymore, do you?" he asked her softly.

"No," she replied firmly.

"Yeah," he sighed, "me neither."


	17. Chapter 17

Later at the diner…

"Agent Booth," Gordon Wyatt smiled as he shook Booth's hand, "It's good to see you again."

"You too, Doc," Booth smiled winningly.

"How have you been?" Wyatt asked.

"Good," Booth answered, "Great. You?"

"Very well, thank you," said Dr. Wyatt, "shall we sit?"

"Yeah."

Booth followed Dr. Wyatt to his and Bones' usual table, where they had been sitting together not thirty minutes prior. But Wyatt didn't know where they usually sat, he thought, _did he?_

"Tea, please," Wyatt told the waitress who came up as they were sitting down.

"Coffee," Booth said. He noticed Wyatt seemed to make a mental note of his order. _Wyatt doesn't know from before that I usually order pie, does he? Is he drawing something from the fact that I don't have an appetite tonight? God, he's making me paranoid already._

"You seem nervous, Agent Booth," Dr. Wyatt observed gently.

"Why would I be nervous?" Booth asked, forcing his tone to sound curious rather than scornful. _I can't seem defensive_, he reminded himself.

"Any number of reasons, I suppose," Wyatt said, smiling softly, "But then maybe your palms are naturally a bit damp."

Booth instinctively felt his palms and realized they were sweaty.

"Well, I suppose I am little nervous ," Booth answered softly at first, loathing having to say it, "I'm not a big fan of being evaluated. Even by my old friend Gordon Gordon."

Wyatt offered an appreciative chuckle at that.

"Well, this time I'm not evaluating you personally, but rather your partnership with Dr. Brennan," Wyatt pointed out, "If that helps to put you at ease at all."

Booth sighed. Of course it didn't.

"Yeah, that's a better way to look at it," Booth lied, "Thanks."

He avoided looking Wyatt in the face for a few moments, not interested in knowing whether the doc had bought that.

"So let's get down to it," Wyatt said, "Are you and Dr. Brennan too close?"

This effectively drew Booth's focus back to him.

"Um, no, but I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to just take my word for it."

"I know, too bad," the doctor smirked, "It would save so much time. Instead, I think we need to discuss: what would too close be?"

"Uh, too close?" Booth asked, "Isn't there like a standard you FBI psychologists already go by?"

"There is," Wyatt confirmed, "But in order to determine whether you and Dr. Brennan have crossed a line, it will help a great deal to know where _you _believe that line should be."

"Well, partners can't be romantically involved, that's for sure," Booth answered gruffly.

"Mm," replied Wyatt, "And why is that?"

"Cause emotions run too high," Booth explained, "And you get distracted from the work. Spats outside of work carry over into work. Your judgment gets clouded."

"Have you ever been romantically involved with someone you worked with?" Wyatt asked.

"Yes. Not a partner, but yes. And it was, unfortunately, a good case in point, because emotions ran too high on a case we were working on and she ended up in the hospital and nearly died as a result."

_That should help_, Booth told himself. But, in fact, the memory only deepened the sinking feeling he'd had since his talk with Cullen.

"Ah yes, we discussed her didn't we, in our sessions the last time? The doctor who cut into the skull because the serial killer had gone after your son."

"Yes," Booth answered, a little surprised that Wyatt remembered it so well. Sure it was a memorable story for most people, but he figured an FBI psychologist had heard plenty of memorable stories.

"You told me then, however, that you two had been romantically involved some years earlier and friends for a good long while, isn't that right?"

"Yes, what's your point?"

"Well, given that history, even if the two of you hadn't gotten back together, don't you think, as your friend, she would have felt the same pressure after the incident with your son?"

"I'm not sure," Booth answered, wondering where Wyatt was going with this.

"We are social creatures, Agent Booth, I'd be surprised if any one of the 'squints' you work with - that's what you call them, isn't it? - if any of them wouldn't have made the same tragic mistake if they had been in her position. Particularly because a child's safety was threatened. Protecting children is a powerful human instinct."

"You sound like - " Booth began, then realized he shouldn't have, but it was too late. So he finished, but attempted to sound more formal.

" - Dr. Brennan. Very anthropological."

"Well, I'm sure Dr. Brennan would hate to hear it but there's a great deal of overlap between anthropology and psychology."

"Yeah," Booth agreed with an amused smile, "I would _not _go there with her when you talk to her, Doc."

"I'll take your advice," Dr. Wyatt chuckled, then became more serious again, "What I'm getting at Agent Booth, is that a certain level of emotional attachment between people who work together is inevitable - and beneficial as well. So let's return to the question: where is the line between beneficial attachment and detrimental attachment between partners? You've indicated that romantic attachment is too distracting. I'm inclined to agree. Certainly the Bureau does. Can a platonic attachment, though, rise to a level that distracts too much from the work as well?"

"Not if both partners are serious about the work," Booth stated, "As Dr. Brennan and I are."

"Indeed. But what if two partners came to care about one another like family?" Wyatt pressed.

"Why would that be a problem?"

"Emotions run high among family members too," Wyatt noted.

"Yeah, but when Bones and I have issues we deal with them, either on our own, or with Dr. Sweets - like we did with you that one time. We know we have a job to do that requires us to be able to be open with each other and to be able to trust each other at all times."

_That sounded good_, Booth thought, _No way he could tell I'd rehearsed it_.

"So you _do _think of Dr. Brennan as being like family to you?" Dr. Wyatt asked.

Booth blinked.

"Sure," he answered, but tried to shrug it off, uncertain whether he'd actually admitted that already or whether he should have.

"Do you have siblings?" Wyatt proceeded curiously.

"Yes."

"Do you think a partnership in the field between a brother and sister would be appropriate? By that I mean would their emotional attachment be more beneficial than detrimental to their work?"

"I think it would depend on the brother and sister."

"Mmm," Wyatt replied at first, as if agreeing, "As family members, though, you don't think they're more likely to be overly-protective of one another in the field? After all, big brothers are notoriously known for being overly-protective of their sisters."

_Here it comes_.

"Partners are supposed to look out for one another, to protect each other," Booth argued, "If they can put personal issues aside when they work, then they would have the advantage of a shorthand between them and an ability to anticipate the others' thoughts and actions and thereby be more effective as a team."

"Yes - a good point - but I was saying '_overly_-protective,' Agent Booth. You seem to be willfully avoiding that possibility."

"Then let's not avoid it," Booth suggested, losing his grip on his temper somewhat, "Deputy Director Cullen made it clear that the reason for this evaluation is that I've been over-protective of Dr. Brennan in the past. Fine. I admit it. I have been. But as I told Cullen, I've been working on that with Dr. Sweets in therapy. And things have been fine since."

Booth could see in Wyatt's face that he found this outburst very interesting. He'd seen the look on Sweets' face enough to know. He did his best to think about something else while waiting for the shrink to execute his reply.

"It must be hard," Wyatt said finally, "Given that Dr. Brennan isn't an agent herself to judge how protective to be of her in the field."

"Sort of," Booth murmured suspiciously.

"Especially considering part of your job is to keep the average citizenry safe from harm," Wyatt continued, "Dr. Brennan, not being FBI, but also being your partner, its almost like you have double the responsibility to protect her."

"Yeah, well Bones may not be FBI, but she's not your average citizen either. She's highly skilled in martial arts, she's an excellent markswoman -"

"Though not officially allowed to carry a gun for FBI purposes," interjected Dr. Wyatt.

"Yeah, but even given that she can still take care of herself better than a lot of agents I know."

"Physically, you mean?" Wyatt queried.

"Yeah, what else?"

"Well, the majority of concerns Director Cullen shared with me, as he apparently did with you as well, weren't about over-protectiveness of Dr. Brennan's physical safety, but rather her emotional state."

"You mean the stuff with her father," said Booth.

"And her brother," Wyatt added, "Were you acting to protect your partner when you interceded on behalf of her father and brother in the ways that you did?"

"It just seemed like the right thing to do. Russ's crimes were small potatoes and Brennan's been through so much with her family - none of the strings I pulled interfered with justice being served."

"Are you saying then that these were _not _instances of over-protectiveness?" Wyatt queried.

"No, I mean, yes they probably were. I'm just saying I didn't see them as a big deal at the time. But when you pile them all up in a file, yeah, clearly I've been over-protective."

"I thought it was before Cullen's file, with Dr. Sweets, that you realized you had been over-protective of Dr. Brennan?"

_Shit_.

"Yeah, it was," Booth lied, trying not to panic.

"I see, you were referring to a file Dr. Sweets had compiled then?"

_Was this a trick? Or would Wyatt really believe him if he said yes?_

"Yeah," he answered.

Wyatt nodded as his watch beeped the hour.

"Alright, time's up for our first session," Wyatt said, "I think we've made excellent progress. I'll see you tomorrow, Agent Booth."

"Okay, thanks Doc," Booth replied uncertainly, as Wyatt rose to his feet, "See ya."

Wyatt smiled, nodded again, and departed the diner. Once he was out of sight, Booth slid his untouched coffee cup to one side and dropped his face heavily into his hands. But he could only let himself wallow in self-pity for a moment. He raised his head and pulled out his phone.

"Hey Bones, we just finished… I'd rather tell you about it in person… yeah, I'm on my way now."


	18. Chapter 18

"Door's open!" Brennan called after the knock at her door. She knew that'd get her a lecture from Booth, but her hands were busy stirring and she didn't want to delay seeing him a minute longer just to pretend to unlock the door for him.

But instead of a lecture came a second knock before it opened, and a voice called back,

"Dr. Brennan? It's Dr. Wyatt."

Brennan's mouth dropped in surprise, but she recovered herself quickly. _Don't panic, _she told herself, _just find a moment to excuse yourself and text Booth to stay the hell away. _"I'm afraid I've dropped by at a bad time," Wyatt suggested apologetically, "You're expecting company."

She had made dinner, mac 'n cheese, in case Booth hadn't eaten during his meeting with Wyatt after all. Though she didn't know why she doubted him when he had said he would.

"Um no, I mean, yes, I am. My my _father _was going to drop by - I'm sorry, was I supposed to know you were coming?"

_Is he actually checking up on us to make sure we're not together? _Brennan wondered, finding that hard to believe, though it was the most logical explanation, but _Would Cullen really have him go that far? _

"Not at all, I do apologize Dr. Brennan, for barging in on you," Dr. Wyatt explained as he entered her apartment, " I just knew I'd be passing by your home - which is lovely by the way - on my way from my session with Agent Booth this evening, and I thought it might be a good idea for us to get our first meeting out of the way, so we can complete this evaluation as quickly as possible. Alas, my cell phone died so I couldn't call ahead. I'm so sorry to have intruded. I'll give you a ring tomorrow and we can set up a more convenient time and place."

"_No_," Brennan insisted, a little too urgently, "Please make yourself at home. Just let me give my father a call, he probably hasn't left yet. I would like to get this done with as soon as possible. He won't mind if I cancel. I'll be right back."

Bones didn't dare let Wyatt walk back out that door. Booth could already be outside on his way in - she couldn't let Wyatt see him. She speed dialed Booth on her cordless as she walked towards her bedroom.

"Booth," he answered.

"Yeah, hi Dad-" she said, loud enough for Wyatt to hear.

"Dad?"

"It's me Temperance, look I'm sorry but do you mind taking a rain check on tonight? Something came up at work…"

She let her voice trail off, as she reached her bedroom.

"Bones if you're in trouble, but can't tell me because someone's listening, cough once."

Brennan rolled her eyes and whispered back:

"I'm fine, it's just that Wyatt's here so don't come here, okay? I gotta go."

"There? At your apartment? Geez he must have drove straight over after our meeting. Did he even call you first?"

"Okay, _Dad_, I'll call ya later, thanks for understanding -"

"Wait Bones, you should know that I told him -" he started but he heard the line go dead. She had hung up. Still the rest of his sentence spilled out dismally to no one, "we've been working on my over-protectiveness… yeah... that's just great."

* * *

"This mac '_n_ cheese is delectable, Dr. Brennan, I feel quite guilty for getting to enjoy your father's share of the meal," Dr. Wyatt both complimented and apologized again at the same time.

"Thank you," Brennan replied. She was losing patience that their session had yet to begin - as far as she could tell.

"Right," Wyatt said, reading her irritation easily, "Down to business. What have you been told, Dr. Brennan, about why I am evaluating your partnership with Agent Booth?"

"My understanding is that Deputy Director Cullen is concerned that Booth and I are too attached to one another."

"And what do you think he means by that?" Wyatt posed.

"Well, honestly, my first thought was that he thinks Booth and I are romantically involved."

"You two get that a lot, don't you?" he said with a knowing smile.

That was not the response Brennan had been expecting. Sweets would have pressed her to speculate on why that was her first thought.

"What makes you say that?" she asked Wyatt.

"Because every man-woman team I've ever worked with has experienced the same thing. It seems a very difficult notion for society to grasp that a man and woman can work closely together day after day and be friends without becoming lovers."

Brennan decided to go out on a limb and replied:

"Director Cullen included, apparently."

"Oh, I don't know about that. Director Cullen has overseen many partnerships in his position. I'm sure he's aware that statistically romance is actually a rare complication between two FBI partners."

"What's the most common complication?" Brennan asked, curiously.

"Oh, a few come to mind," Wyatt answered, "A lack of trust. Poor communication. Competitiveness…"

"None of those sound like complications from being too _close_," Brennan noted, "more like the opposite."

"Being overly-protective," Wyatt added and let the suggestion hang.

Brennan shrugged and shook her head, "Nope."

"Neither you nor Agent Booth have a tendency to be overly-protective of the other?"

"Booth has nagged me about not checking before I open my door sometimes," she offered, "But then he leaves a spare key in a fake rock that anyone would recognize and I've nagged him about that. Is that being over-protective?"

Wyatt shook his head, clearly amused, "Definitely not. Just the right amount of protectiveness, I should think."

Brennan took a triumphant bite of her mac 'n cheese.

"Do you visit each other's homes often then?"

Brennan suddenly very thankful that her mouth was full as it bought her time to consider her answer as she chewed and finally swallowed.

"Not often," she replied coolly, "Only when necessary."

"Such as the time, a couple years ago, an attempt on your life was made and Agent Booth stayed with you at your apartment for protection?"

"He didn't _stay _with me at my apartment," Brennan pointed out, "He tripped a bomb in my refrigerator that was meant for me and had to be rushed to the hospital. So, yes, that certainly turned out to be one of those necessary times."

"Indeed," Wyatt agreed, ignoring her defensiveness, "And a short time after that you were kidnapped by the man who had made these attempts to kill you and he turned out to be another agent, a colleague of Agent Booth's."

"Yes," Brennan confirmed, "But I don't see what this has to do with -"

"Is it true, that Agent Booth left the hospital less than twenty-four hours after being blown up to come after you and Agent Kenton?"

"Yes, because he and Hodgins put it together that Kenton had to be involved -"

"And did he really go in with the FBI team to get you without even wearing the requisite bullet proof vest?"

"What?"

_Was that true? _Brennan asked herself. She hadn't noticed, but it felt true as she remembered him holding her and didn't recall feeling the vest on him. _He just had on that zipped up sweatshirt of Hodgins', hadn't he?_

"I don't remember that," she told Wyatt, "Did he?"

"That's what I've heard," Wyatt replied innocently, "It certainly makes sense to me that his injuries would have made it extremely uncomfortable to put on one of those hard and heavy vests."

"I'm not sure either way," Brennan maintained, "Why?"

"Well, while the story is a marvelous testament to Agent Booth's courage," explained Wyatt, "it did seem like he put himself at serious risk unnecessarily."

"He saved my life," she began to argue.

"Yes, but couldn't the rest of the team have done so without him? In fact, given his physical state, couldn't the argument be made that it would have been safer for everyone if Booth had stayed outside. He might have collapsed from the pain he was in and tipped your kidnapper off. Or his vision might have been impaired-"

"Booth's shot disabled Kenton. He wouldn't have gone in if he thought he might compromise the rescue."

Wyatt cocked his head to one side and regarded Brennan with a perplexed expression.

"You know the condition he was in, do you really think that was a rational assessment on his part?"

"Obviously it _was _an accurate assessment because he didn't compromise it. Booth is very strong and he's had his strength and ability to endure pain tested many times before," Brennan answered solemnly, "He knows what he can handle."

"But was it a reasonable risk that he took, when a team of trained agents were going in to get you - all wearing bullet proof vests, I might add - for him to insist on going along in his state?"

Wyatt paused for an answer, but Brennan couldn't provide one.

"It's reasonable to me," Wyatt continued, "given that he had just been blown up, and betrayed by a fellow agent, that his judgment was severely impaired both physically and emotionally."

Brennan nodded, mulling this over a moment, then answered:

"I can see that. But in that case, you're describing an unusual set of circumstances that led to Booth's impaired judgment. So this instance doesn't prove a _general _tendency toward over-protectiveness."

Dr. Wyatt smiled lightly, "I agree completely."

_Then what was the point of all that? _Bones wondered.

"I'm curious, Dr. Brennan," Wyatt said next, "Did Agent Booth tell you how he planned to handle the hit Roberto Ortez put out on your life before he acted?"

"Roberto Ortez?" she repeated, not recalling the name.

"He was a gang leader you encountered in the Duarte case, where the young man had buried his father and sister -"

"He put a hit out on me?"

"Oh my," Wyatt noted with raised eyebrows, "I suppose that answers my question."

"What did Booth do?" Brennan demanded.

"I think I'd better let Agent Booth answer that for you himself," Dr. Wyatt decided, "Because what I've heard could merely be rumor. Not the 'hit,' mind you, that's a fact, but how the hit went a way is not contained in any _official _report."

Brennan was about to insist on knowing what the rumor was when her cell phone went off. For a moment she considered switching it off, but remembered she was on a case. She was right, it was Sully's number on her caller ID.

"Sorry, I have to take this, it's Agent Sullivan," Brennan excused herself.

"My time was nearly up anyway, Dr. Brennan," Dr. Wyatt assured her, rising to his feet, "I'll let my self out and be in touch."

She nodded as she opened her phone.

"Brennan."


	19. Chapter 19

Having not returned home til nearly two in the morning, Bones was just beginning to drift off to sleep at three fourteen when her cell phone rang. Without opening her eyes, her hand groped for it on her nightstand, found it, and opened it by the third ring.

"Brennan," she murmured.

"Ohhhh, I woke you," she heard him say guiltily, and smiled at the sound of his voice in spite of her drowsiness, "Sorry, Bones, I thought you might still be working."

"If I had been working," she pointed out, "You still shouldn't have called."

"You could have pretended I was your dad again," he suggested with amusement.

"No thanks," she replied, "that was weird."

"Heh, yeah," he agreed, "Look, sorry I woke you. Lunch at the diner tomorrow?"

"No, I mean, yes," she faltered at first from sleepiness, "Yes lunch tomorrow, but as long as we're both awake, I know I said I wouldn't guess anymore, but I figured it out. When your moment was, I mean."

"You think so, do you?"

She could hear his smile in his voice and her own grin widened.

"Yes," she replied confidently, "In Las Vegas -"

"Ehh! Wrong," Booth cut her off before she could get more specific.

"Damn it!" she swore, "Then it _was _when the gravedigger got us, wasn't it? I was debating between the two, but I should have known. High stress situations -"

Booth was shaking his head, but realized she couldn't know that over the phone.

"_Before _Las Vegas, Bones, not after," he told her.

"Before?" she exclaimed.

"Before."

The line was quiet a moment.

"You're not going to tell me it was love at first sight, are you?" she asked warily.

"You say that like it would be a bad thing," he said in with laughter in his voice.

"I have never understood why someone would want to be loved at first sight - when the other person knows nothing about you, their attraction to you based solely on your appearance? It doesn't sound romantic; it sounds deluded and obsessive."

"Well, I was most definitely _attracted _to you right off the bat," he assured her, "but then you started talking and _talking _and -"

"And you were mesmerized by the beauty of my intellect?" she interjected, shrewdly parrying his attempt to tease.

He laughed, "Yes, exactly."

"Good answer… now give me a hint."

"I thought you didn't want to guess," he complained. While waiting for her session with Wyatt to end, and then the interrogation she had gone to with Sully, he had passed the time by looking forward to telling Bones how he had first come to realize he had fallen for her.

"Just one tiny hint is all I need," she begged.

"I never would have guessed yours," he told her, "There's nothing to be ashamed of. Obviously we're just both very good at deception - which is exactly why we're going to pull off getting our partnership reinstated."

"Oh yeah, how did it go with you and Wyatt?" she inquired, "I found our session to be very surprising."

"Surprising how?" asked Booth anxiously at first, "You do mean besides how he showed up at your door out of the blue?"

"Yes, besides that," she told him, "He agreed with me a lot. Almost like… I don't know, never mind. You're the one with the intuitive skills."

"No, come on," he pressed her encouragingly, "Almost like what?"

"Like he'd already made up his mind that there's nothing wrong with our partnership."

"Really?"

"He didn't seem that way to you?" she asked.

"Well," he began, what she had said seemed familiar, "There were times he wasn't as… curious as I would have expected -"

"Yeah, exactly!"

"But I don't know, Bones, he could just be trying to lull us into a false sense of security. We still have to be really careful."

"Why?" she asked, sensing he was holding something back.

"Well," he sighed, knowing was going to have to tell her about Cullen. She needed to know for when she talked to Wyatt. "Cullen's a lot more upset than I imagined from what Sweets told us."

"What does he have to be upset about?"

"Me. This suspension, this evaluation, it's all my fault, Bones. It's not Cullen being paranoid, or Sweets giving us away, or anyone else - I blew it. Cullen's got a whole file of concerns on me."

"What concerns?" Bones asked, bewildered by this news.

"Just," Booth sighed, "Instances where I've been 'overly-protective' of you, as he put it. Bending rules, ignoring protocols, taking risks - I'm afraid Wyatt's evaluation may be just a formality and that Cullen already has his mind made up."

"Instances," she echoed, "Like insisting on coming after Kenton and I?"

"Yeah," he confirmed softly.

"And how you made the hit Ortez put on me disappear?"

"How many of them did Wyatt bring up?" Booth asked, realizing the psychiatrist must have told her about Ortez's hit.

"How many are there, Booth?" Brennan shot back, "Why didn't you ever tell me about Ortez? And how _did _you make the hit go away?"

"Wait, back up a sec first," he stalled, "How did he bring this stuff up? Did Wyatt ask you directly if I was over-protective?"

"He asked if we were overly-protective of each other and I told him no -"

Booth groaned, "I told him we were working on my over-protective tendencies with Sweets."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because I had to tell Cullen that. There was no arguing with his file, except to claim that Sweets fixed me and it would never happen again."

"How did you make the hit go away, Booth?" Bones demanded again.

"Why does it matter?"

"Because you're telling me that Cullen is right - we shouldn't be working together."

"No I wasn't -"

"You just said 'there was no arguing with Cullen's file,'" Bones returned, her voice rising sharply, "What else have you done?"

"Bones, calm down," he told her, "You're tired and you're over-reacting."

"I can't know if I'm over-reacting or not because you're not giving me the facts!"

"Fine! I went to see Ortez."

"You went to see Ortez?" she echoed, "Meaning you didn't bring him into the FBI?"

"No, Ortez wasn't intimidated by the FBI. So I had to play it a little crazy to get through to him."

"_How _crazy?"

"I went to his turf, cornered him, alone, and threatened to kill him if anything happened to you."

"You went alone?! That's _being _crazy, Booth, not playing at it," she argued, her voice growing colder.

"You're still alive, I'm still alive," he told her gently, "So it worked."

Brennan was stonily silent for a few moments.

"You're mad?" he asked, not really as surprised as he sounded.

"That was a stupid thing to do."

"No stupider than kicking his ass in the first place," he countered.

She ignored his point, stating solemnly:

"Maybe Cullen's been right all along. It is dangerous for us to work together, feeling the way we do."

"Our work is dangerous period."

"What else is in the file?"

"Stuff you already know," he promised quickly, "Stuff I did for your dad and Russ."

"That's all?"

"Yeah," he said, "Look, Bones, we've both had long days, why don't we table this til lunch tomorrow and get some sleep, okay?"

"Fine," she answered stiffly, "Goodnight."

She had given in far too quickly, he worried.

"Bones," he said urgently, hoping she wouldn't hang up too fast.

"What?" she asked, rather brusquely.

"Love you," he told her.

She was silent for a moment, leaving Booth to squirm over whether she was glad to hear it, or still too upset with him about Ortez and Cullen's file.

"I love you too," she answered finally. The warmth in her voice lit up his face with a wide smile. She had been glad.

"G'night, Bones," he said.

"Night," she returned, and hung up.


	20. Chapter 20

Barely ten minutes after Agent Booth himself sat down at his desk the next morning, Dr. Wyatt arrived at his door, bearing coffee and Krispy Kremes. Booth had to admit to himself once again that the doc really knew his stuff. The intake of caffeine and sugar diffused his annoyance at the impromptu visit almost completely.

"I wanted to ask you today," Dr. Wyatt began, "if you don't mind, about your sessions with Dr. Sweets. I must, however, preface this topic with the disclaimer that you are fully entitled to your doctor-patient confidentiality with Dr. Sweets and choosing not to share anything from your sessions with he and Dr. Brennan will not in any way negatively impact my evaluation."

"Okay," Booth replied a little cautiously, "I guess it'll depend on what you'd like to know."

"To start us off, what do you think of Dr. Sweets' methods?" he began generally.

"I don't know," Booth struggled with the question, "He's kind of annoying sometimes, but he's good at what he does. He's a brilliant profiler, and offers useful insights during interrogations - though, frankly, so does Angela. She doesn't do profiling, though."

Dr. Wyatt smiled.

"I meant during your sessions with Dr. Brennan - what do you think of his methods?"

"Well," said Booth, "When he comes out and says stuff, it's usually pretty good, especially when he encourages Bones to confront her emotions -"

"How about what he has to say about your protective issues?"

"Oh yeah," Booth agreed quickly, "There too he's really helpful - with that. Yeah."

"I sensed, however, there was a 'but' coming before I interrupted you?" Wyatt prompted, "When Dr. Sweets 'comes out and says stuff' it's helpful, _but _-?"

"Oh, but sometimes he does this thing where he just sits there staring at us at the start of a session - what's that about? Or he gets these weird ideas for partnership-building, like doing pottery with him and his girlfriend. That, actually, was kind of fun. I made a horse, but then they got into a thing and it was kinda awkward -"

"'They - you mean Dr. Sweets and his girlfriend?" Wyatt asked, leaning forward to rest his cheek on his hand.

"Right," Booth confirmed, "Poor kid, she dumped him the next day."

Wyatt's eyebrow shot up at this and he sat a little straighter. Booth, however, was on a roll and barely noticed his reaction.

"Come to think of it, Doc," Booth added to fill Dr. Wyatt's thoughtful pause, "The Bureau, or maybe it's Dr. Sweets, or a combination of the two, have been jerking Bones and I back and forth about whether we're too close to work together or not close enough. When we first started seeing Sweets it was because they were sure Bones and I couldn't get past the fact that I had arrested her father. But by like our second session with Sweets he was convinced that Bones and I were _too _attached to one another. But _then _he starts to pushing how we needed to talk more about things _other _than work and do things together _outside _of work, like with the pottery thing, and now - voila! - we're back to being in trouble for being too close."

"Mmm," Dr. Wyatt replied. It wasn't much more than a grunt, but it sounded sympathetic.

"Frankly, Doc, I think partners' therapy has been our toughest challenge. Not serial killers, not her family - the _therapy_."

_Okay_, Booth thought, _that was probably overkill_. But if throwing Sweets under the bus would save their partnership, Booth would have no regrets…


	21. Chapter 21

"Dr. Brennan?" Hodgins asked. He had come to show her the results of his latest tests on the particulates found on the victim's shoes, but she hadn't noticed him enter her office. She continued staring off into space until he spoke.

"You okay, Dr. B.?"

"Yeah," she said, turning her chair to face him, "What have you got?"

He went over the results with her and though she listened, there was a unmistakable disinterest in her manner. He'd never seen her so disengaged, not even when her brother and father had come back into her life with all their drama. Something was seriously wrong if Dr. Temperance Brennan couldn't get excited about the work.

_I'd better tell Angela_, he thought, as he prepared to head back to work as he had finished briefing Brennan on his findings. But she wasn't done with him.

"Hodgins?" she asked, before he could turn to go.

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember, when Kenton kidnapped me and you and Booth came after me, did Booth wear a vest into the warehouse?"

"Uh," Hodgins paused a moment, not because he didn't remember, but because the change in topic was so extreme, "No, he didn't. He gave me his to wear."

"Why?"

"I dunno - because he was in too much pain to put it on himself?"

"Did you try talking him out of going in?" Brennan questioned him, frustration clearly mounting within, "I mean, there was a whole team of agents going in after me and he could barely walk."

"The team leader tried," said Hodgins in his defense, "But Booth wouldn't hear it and the guy caved, so I didn't see how I could convince him. You know Booth, nothing was going to stop him from making sure you got out of there all right."

_Not even an overdose of pudding._

Brennan's gaze dropped to her desk as she replied:"He felt responsible."

Hodgins' brow furrowed. Before he knew it, he was arguing with her:

"Booth didn't feel responsible for what happened to you in New Orleans, but he hopped a plane down there as soon as he heard you'd been hurt," he pointed out, "And when the gravedigger got us, it wasn't obligation or guilt that compelled him not to let the team give up on us, or dig you out _with his bare hands._"

"He dug you out too - I don't understand what you're trying to say."

Jack sighed. He knew he shouldn't explain, he should make a run for it, but he couldn't hold it in any longer.

"I'm saying it's not just guilt, or a sense of obligation because it's his job - Booth loves you. And if I'm way off base here, I apologize, but I think you love him too -"

"Dr. Hodgins -" she tried to interrupt, but he only raised his voice to continue over her protest.

"And you two are idiots to pretend otherwise whatever the rationalization. You put your lives at risk on a regular basis. Booth _died _once already. I know the only regret I have about the love of my life is that I didn't tell her sooner. Do you want your regret be that you never told him at all?"

Hodgins took a deep breath as his rant had run out of air, then glanced nervously at his superior. Dr. Brennan closed her eyes and pressed her finger tips to her brow for a moment and sighed. Suddenly terrified that he had caused her pain, Hodgins murmured:

"I'm sorry, Dr. Brennan, I -"

He cut himself off though as she raised her head with a furrowed brow and a thoughtful expression."Did you mean Angela?" she asked softly, but her confusion was evident, "The love of your life?"

His voice cracked, "Yes."

"But you broke up."

"Yes we did," Hodgins agreed.

She paused again to consider what he was telling her.

"If you had told her sooner," she reasoned, "you might have broken up sooner too."

Hodgins laughed, but nodded, "You could be right, but… but love is neither predictable nor rational."

"So true, Dr. Hodgins," came a voice for the doorway.

Both scientists' eyes widened at the sound and subsequent sight of the British psychiatrist.

"Dr. Brennan," he said penitently, "I just stopped by to see if you might be free for lunch? One more session should be all I need to complete my evaluation."

"Okay," she answered, "Sure. At the Royal Diner? I'll meet you there, say eleven-thirty?"

"Eleven-thirty it is," he replied, "See you then."

Brennan turned back to Hodgins who seemed frozen where he stood. Even his bug-eyed expression seemed permanent. A moment or two after Wyatt had departed, however, Hodgins managed to find his voice.

"Any idea how long he was standing there?" he asked. Hodgins had had his back to the door.

"Couldn't have been long," she told him, stretching her neck to look over his shoulder at the doorway where Wyatt had been, "He couldn't have heard anything about - you know. I would have noticed him standing there… before."

"Yeah, I'm sure you would have," Hodgins agreed, "A big guy like him, though, you'd think we would have heard him coming."

"Yes, well, I have work I need to get back to before -"

"Eleven thirty," Hodgins finished for her, "Right… I am so sorry Dr. Brennan. I just wanted to -"

"It's fine, Jack," she cut him off, "Just let it go, okay? Booth and I are fine. Once we get through this stupid evaluation, everything will be fine."

Hodgins nodded, backing out of her office, "Okay. I - I'll just go take an early lunch, to get my head back in the game, if that's cool?"

Brennan just nodded and waved a hand at him while she faced her computer monitor.

* * *

"Booth," the agent answered his cell from his desk.

"It's me," he heard Bones tell him, "I have to cancel our lunch. Wyatt wants to meet and between that and the case…"

"He gave you a whopping fifteen minutes advance notice this time?" a cranky Booth replied. _This is why we can't be split up_, he thought to himself, _if we're not working together, when will we ever see each other?_

"More like thirty to be honest," she said, "Sorry I didn't call sooner."

"No, it's fine," he told her softly, though he felt, if anything, she sounded the opposite of sorry, "I was just really looking forward to seeing you. And I had hoped we could finish our talk before you saw Wyatt again."

"Is there something you should tell me before I hear it from him at lunch?" Brennan asked stiffly.

"_No_, nothing," Booth replied firmly, "But when can I see you? We need to talk - in person. I don't suppose I can talk you into taking off work early?"

"I'm on a case, Booth," she reminded him, seemingly impervious to how evidently he missed her, "If anything, I'll have to work late."

"Well, don't go skipping meals," he nagged, "I have Sully's number too you know, and I will use it if I don't hear from you -"

"Booth -" she began to protest, but stopped herself, "No, you know what, never mind. Do whatever comes into that over-sized, alpha male head of yours. Consequences be damned! I have to leave now to meet Wyatt."

"Wha - Bones?" he started, but she had already hung up.

Booth set down his phone and, frowning, placed one hand, palm down, under his chin and the other on top of his head.

"Over-sized?" he uttered, disbelieving.

* * *

It seemed to Booth as if he had finally gotten his focus back after Brennan's call, when the clearing of someone's throat demanded his attention.

"Hodgins?" Booth looked up from his desk at the squint, his annoyance converted to surprise, "What are you doing here?"

"Um, well, I said some things to Dr. Brennan this morning were way inappropriate," he babbled, "And I figured, hey, I'm on a roll, so I may as well deliver this -"

"Way inappropriate _how_?

Hodgins ignored Booth's question as he held out a folded piece of paper that he pulled from his breast pocket. On the outside there was printed words. It appeared to be pages from a book.

"What's that?" Booth asked, without taking it, "Have you been drinking?"

Jack gave a short, soft laugh and shook his head.

"Dude, if I'd been drinking, I wouldn't be shaking so bad right now."

Still holding the folded letter out to Booth, Hodgins paused to clear his throat then plowed ahead with what he'd come to say:

"It's a letter, to you, written by Dr. Brennan when we were buried by the gravedigger - in case we didn't make it out. Better late than never, right?"

The squint chuckled nervously as Booth, fascinated, finally snatched it. Once the letter had left his hand, Hodgins didn't hesitate to make his escape.

"Hodgins!" Booth called after him, but he was gone, and Agent Booth wasn't about to put off reading the letter just to chase after him.


	22. Chapter 22

Dr. Brennan entered the diner at precisely eleven thirty. Her goal was clear, her emotions neatly compartmentalized. She didn't need to decide yet how she felt about the risks Booth had taken and sacrifices he had made for her. All she needed to know was that they didn't need Cullen or Wyatt to decide for them whether she and Booth should continue working together. She would stay on their original course of convincing Wyatt their relationship was sufficiently professional and afterward objectively assess for herself whether to sever their working relationship.

Dr. Brennan approached Dr. Wyatt, seated at their usual table (her's and Booth's), with total confidence.

"Good evening Dr. Brennan," he greeted her cordially, "How's your case going?"

"Dead end," she replied with a sigh.

"Sorry to hear it," he said sincerely.

"I'll have a lot of re-examining to do, when we're through, to find new leads, so could we proceed with the evaluation as quickly as possible this evening?"

"Yes, of course," he answered meekly, "I'd like to start off asking about your sessions with Dr. Sweets, if you don't mind. You don't have to share any details you don't want to - you have your right to doctor-patient confidentiality. Any specifics you're willing to give may be helpful, but choosing not to comment won't reflect negatively on you by any means."

"What do you want to know?" she asked evenly.

"Have you found Dr. Sweets helpful?"

"With interrogations yes, and the accuracy of some of his profiles have caused me to reconsider my dismissal of their usefulness."

"He assessed Pam Noonan, didn't he? The stalker who tried to shoot you at the karaoke establishment, isn't that right?"

Bones inhaled a sharp, involuntary breath at the memory.

"Yes," she replied quietly, then added as an afterthought, "Sweets felt she was dangerous."

_And we laughed at him, _she remembered, a chill running up her spine.

"But she had an alibi," Wyatt noted conversationally.

"A fact which did not change his conclusion. Sweets was right, as usual."

Dr. Wyatt leaned back in his chair thoughtfully.

Bones, meanwhile, frowned, displeased with how quickly she had gone from confident and composed to gasps and chills. _Get a grip - she didn't actually kill him._

"I've allowed my curiosity to get us sidetracked, forgive me," Wyatt apologized, leaning over the onto his elbows to re-engage in the business at hand.

"I'm not actually interested in Dr. Sweets' usefulness in aiding your investigations - that has no bearing on the evaluation - only his usefulness in supporting a healthy and effective partnership between yourself and Agent Booth. Do you feel he has helped your partnership?"

Brennan paused to consider the question for a moment. Instead of a engaging in a rational assessment of the pros and cons of their sessions with Sweets, however, she found her consciousness unexpectedly overwhelmed with memories. First of Booth falling to the floor, bleeding heavily from the entry wound of Noonan's bullet. Then the moment they told her he hadn't survived - when they'd lied to her and kept lying to her because _Sweets told them to_.

"No."

It was Dr. Wyatt's turn to pause, momentarily taken aback by the iciness of that pithy reply.

"By that do you mean that he hasn't contributed anything significant towards the success of your partnership? Or do you feel he's actually done _harm _to it?"

Bones hesitated in spite of a latent rage that was now building within her. In that moment she wanted to say yes and decry him for the pain he put her through. But she had to consider the consequences - _why does Wyatt even want to know?_

"I'm not sure I understand how this is relevant," she stalled.

"If, for example," Wyatt explained, "Dr. Sweets has helped you and Agent Booth to find an effective balance of the professional and personal in your partnership, that would be quite relevant to my evaluation and of particular interest to Deputy Director Cullen."

_Meaning it could save our partnership, _Brennan thought, _if Wyatt confirms that Sweets has cured, or can cure, Booth of his over-protective tendencies_. She was still tempted to denounce Sweets as a quack with a god-complex.

_He did warn us about the evaluation though_, Bones reminded herself to help cool her temper.

"I know Booth feels Dr. Sweets has been helpful," she answered, "And that's good, but honestly I'm not convinced his methods have yielded any effect - positive or negative - on our partnership."

"I see. So you only agreed to continue your sessions in return for his help with your cases?"

"That's correct."

"Fair enough," said Dr. Wyatt, "I'm satisfied on that subject. In fact, I have only one topic left to discuss before I expect we'll be through."

She should have been relieved. She would have been, back when the evaluation had begun and to her their partnership was all busting bad guys and being with Booth, completing each other. Now, Wyatt had opened her eyes to it also being the ever-present danger and threat of loss - of being broken in half and left alone. Bones wasn't ready to decide for herself if she dared let their partnership continue.

"After Agent Booth was shot, he was compelled to fake his death," Dr. Wyatt went on, as Bones silently wished to be anywhere else, "You were left believing your partner of three years was dead until the day of his funeral, when he suddenly appeared alive and well to apprehend a criminal that his phony demise was intended to trap."

Brennan just gazed off into space with dead eyes.

"I can't imagine the shock," Wyatt sympathized, "How did you cope with what must have been an overwhelming barrage of emotions?"

"Well," she said, her tone and expression revealing nothing, "First I took the guy out, because otherwise Booth was going to get himself shot all over again. Then, once he was incapacitated… I took a swing at Booth."

Wyatt chuckled, "Indeed? Do you mean you swung and missed or did you -"

"Oh no," she assured him, "I hit him and he hit the ground."

This image forced Wyatt to stifle an unprofessional attack of giggles and Bones couldn't help relaxing a little in response to his amusement.

"I'm surprised the FBI didn't have an official report of that," she quipped. _I wouldn't have disclosed it if I'd known you didn't know_.

Wyatt managed to collect himself before replying, "I'm sure the FBI finds it best to protect its agents' egos whenever it can."

Dr. Wyatt cleared his throat, a smile still lingering, as he tried to return to seriousness.

"Did you feel better after striking him?"

Brennan thought back to how she had felt as she had stormed away from Booth and his fake funeral. Though she was still furious, she had felt better, but not because she had hurt him back. The realization that he had really been there - alive after all - was sinking in. Her fist had connected with a living, breathing Booth; the evidence had been conclusive.

"Yes and no," she replied. That seemed to be enough for Dr. Wyatt.

"The deception, despite it's worthy cause, must have put a terrible strain on your partnership," he commented.

"I have to admit it did, but only briefly," Brennan answered, "It seemed completely unnecessary to keep the truth from me. My knowing wasn't going to jeopardize the operation."

"You confronted Agent Booth on that point?"

"Yes," Brennan confirmed, looking at him oddly, "I'm surprised you don't already know, but I was supposed to have been told. Booth was allowed to make a short list of people, like his son's mother, family members, etc. who would be notified that he was not actually dead. I was on that list. However, Dr. Sweets was appointed by the Bureau to review the list to be sure it included no more names than were absolutely necessary."

Bones paused, startled by a sudden, marked change in Dr. Wyatt's demeanor.

"Dr. Sweets took your name off that list?" he asked.

_Stern_, that was the look, Brennan decided, that Dr. Wyatt now wore.

"Yes," she said. "How did you - and Agent Booth for that matter - react when you learned of Dr. Sweets' interference?"

"Booth wanted me to slug him," Brennan recalled, "So, obviously, he was upset. I understood Sweets' reasoning though and agreed with it. So that was it and things went back to normal."

Wyatt stared at her as if he couldn't quite believe what she was saying.

Bones didn't feel it necessary to reveal her confrontation with Sweets in the stairwell or her suspicions about an ulterior motive.

"What reason did Dr. Sweets give?" Wyatt queried.

"It was a national security issue," Brennan explained, "The fewer people who knew about it, the better the chance of its success. And he knew I was capable of processing Booth's death and moving on."

_Not that that national security was his only motivation_, she thought bitterly.

Dr. Wyatt had gone strangely quiet. His brow was furrowed, apparently deep in thought, staring off into space. Brennan allowed him several moments, before she felt compelled to ask -

"Dr. Wyatt?"

He blinked, but his gaze remained fixed (on something in his mind's eye) as he began to speak:

"Dr. Brennan, since you're not a fan of psychology, I don't suppose the names Harlow, Seligman, or Zimbardo mean anything to you?"

"No they don't. Who are they?"

"Hmm?" he grunted at first, then appeared to awake from his meditation, "Authors of some of the more infamous psychological experiments ever conducted, in my opinion. Infamous because of how they left their subjects, which, I suspect, would convert you from distrusting psychology to downright despising it. I know some days I do."

Bones regarded him in silence. _Where is this coming from_? she wondered, _And going?_

"Dr. Brennan," he interrupted her thoughts in a warm tone and with a smile that was more like his usual self, "Thank you for your time and patience. I believe I have all I need to complete my evaluation."

"What have you concluded?" she asked, feeling anxious, but not showing it.

"Well, I'm not prepared to declare that just yet. I will be going over my notes and preparing a final draft in the next twenty-four hours - the Deputy Director wanted it as soon as possible. So you should hear from him very soon, I should hope."

"I see."

Dr. Wyatt bid her farewell, but rather than following him out and returning to work, Bones stayed behind, utterly drained.


	23. Chapter 23

Brennan sat at that table - for one of the few times in her life - not thinking. Not actively. Thoughts came and went. Images. Sounds. Voices. But what to do with all of them? How to organize them? How to judge them? They were all too loaded with emotion. So she just sat, until one stray thought demanded her attention above all the others.

_He'll come find you here._

It startled her. _Was that a … did I just have… _she thought, _That was a gut feeling, wasn't it?_

A gut feeling that she couldn't shake. Booth would soon find her there at their table, just as he had found her after Sully sailed away, and outside the courthouse before they read her father's verdict. She had to decide what she wanted to do before he got there.

_I want to talk to Sweets._

* * *

"Oh, Dr. Brennan, I was just going to call you," Sweets said the moment he saw her enter his office. He looked worried, but not the nervous kind of worried that made him look even more youthful than normal; this concern on his face made him actually look more grown up.

"No matter how Cullen presented it to you, you are fully within your rights to deny a transfer of my files on you to Dr. Wyatt. Your rights - and Booth's - as patients are not subject to the FBI just because you work for them. The Bureau's attorneys will tell him the same thing."

"I haven't spoken to Director Cullen," Brennan said, "And apparently Dr. Wyatt doesn't need to your files because he told me today he has everything he needs to complete his evaluation. That's not why I'm here."

"Oh," he answered, taking his chair. She took her usual seat across from him, as if Booth were there with them, "Well, lucky I have some time. Let's talk about why you are here."

"When Booth and I were first sent to see you, you were concerned about the 'deep emotional connection' between Booth and I," she began, but paused for him to comment.

"Yes, initially, somewhat concerned," he qualified.

"You suggested I was unusually protective of him."

"I remember. You both firmly disagreed."

"Were you ever concerned about Booth's protectiveness of me?" Brennan asked.

He looked at her uncertainly, not speaking for several moments. Her anger immediately re-lit. _He's trying to figure out what answer will pacify me rather than simply telling the truth!_

Then next second she was on her feet. When she could see she had his full attention, she gestured to the space around her -

"_Truth Zone_, Sweets, remember?" Bones snapped at him.

"Sure," he answered finally, looking up to meet her gaze uncomfortably, "it's been somewhat of a concern both ways, but that's part of what we've been working on -"

"Both ways? I haven't risked my life or my career for Booth the way he has for me -"

"Are you sure?" Sweets challenged with an immature grin - and then immediately regretted it as she took an imposing step towards him.

"Why," she persisted slowly, "didn't you split us up?"

"Initially?"

"Ever!"

"You think I should have?" he asked in disbelief.

"Why aren't you answering my question?" she demanded. _I can answer questions with questions too, Dr. Geeks, _she seethed silently.

"Honestly, because I'm feeling pretty attacked here, Dr. Brennan," he replied, almost timidly from his chair, "Let's just take a breath, take a seat, and talk about what's really bothering you."

"Your bullshit is what's bothering me. You kept us together, when you _knew _better. And you did it for the same selfish reason you let me believe he was dead - your goddamn book! You manipulative son of a bitch!"

Sweets was so terrified by Brennan's blazing anger that it didn't register for a moment that she had whirled away from him and headed for the door.

"Dr. Brennan," he called after her, snapping out of it, "Where are you going?"

The spry young doctor leapt over the space between Booth and Brennan's chairs and beat her to the door. She stopped short in surprise. By the look on his face as he caught his breath, he had surprised himself even more.

"Get out of the way, Sweets," she commanded wearily.

"Please, Dr. Brennan," Sweets pleaded, "Hear me out before you do something you'll regret."

She took a moment to consider his advice. She crossed her arms. Glanced around the room. Drummed the fingers of her right hand on her left elbow. Then replied:

"Booth was right."

"About what?" he asked, not making the connection.

The next moment, her right cross left him sprawled out on his floor. To get out the door, she had to slide his legs away a little with her foot. He groaned.


	24. Chapter 24

Brennan's mind had by no means been made up when she went to see Sweets. Especially in light of Hodgins' recent outburst. Hodgins had made a lot of sense, that their lives were unpredictable and dangerous. She never wanted to find herself standing over Booth's grave again with so many regrets. But, more than that, she couldn't bear again the guilt his dying for her. Wyatt had made it painfully clear how likely it was to happen again - how many times it had almost happened before. This raised the question in her mind of why Sweets would have kept them together so long. An obvious answer had sprung to mind, but Sweets deserved the opportunity to explain himself. But he hadn't, making her decision clear.

Brennan's hands clenched into fists to keep from shaking as she waited for the elevator to reach Director Cullen's floor.

Her phone rang as she exited the elevator. It was Angela.

"Hey Angela," Brennan answered, "I can't really talk right now, can I call you back?"

"Why? Where are you? Hodgins came by my office, worried about you, but you've been gone since. I assumed you were working the case, but then Sully was here to see if we had anything new and he hadn't seen you. What's wrong, Sweetie? Is it the evaluation?"

Brennan sighed, "There's nothing to worry about. I'm just… running errands. I'll be back soon."

_"I don't buy it," Angela replied knowingly, "You want to go get coffee, or dinner, and we'll talk?"_

_Last chance_, a small voice inside her seemed to say. She could see Cullen today, as she intended, and tell him she wouldn't work with Booth anymore, or she could talk it out with Angela first. _Angela_, Bones thought, _who revels in the fantasy of Booth as my knight in shining armor - or however she puts it._

…_If only he'd put on the damn armor! _she thought ruefully.

"Yeah fine, Ange," Brennan told her, "Meet me at the diner in say a half an hour. I just have one thing I have to do first."

Instinctively, she hung up before Angela had the chance to reply and continued on course towards Cullen's office door.

"Dr. Brennan?"

She looked round with a start to see Dr. Wyatt approaching.

"I really haven't completed my evaluation yet," Dr. Wyatt said half-jokingly, "if you're here to see Director Cullen."

"That's not going to be necessary, Dr. Wyatt," she told him, "I'm requesting that he permanently assign a new agent as my FBI liaison."

Wyatt cocked his head to one side as if physically gaining a new perspective on the situation might help.

"'Liaison,' what an interesting choice of term," Wyatt noted in a near murmur to himself, "Could function as a distancing mechanism _and _a Freudian slip both at the same time."

Brennan was ignoring him anyway, preparing to excuse herself more forcefully. Wyatt saw this coming, however, and added quickly -

"Dr. Brennan, if it's not too much of an inconvenience, since I've already put so much time into my evaluation and, frankly, have been leaning towards a very different conclusion than you have reached, would you mind sharing with me how you've come to your decision?"

Brennan hesitated.

"There's an empty conference room, just down the hall," he assured her, "We can speak in private."

* * *

"Hey Booth," Angela said, sounding a little surprised to find him there at his and Brennan's usual table.

"Hey Ange," he replied politely, "Have a seat?"

_Don't ask her_, he warned himself, _don't even think about asking her_.

"Don't mind if I do," she accepted, taking the seat across from him.

Booth was so determined not to bring up the topics he shouldn't, but so consumed with them at the same time, that he found himself paralyzed from forming a sentence.

"Booth," she said. She was onto him already.

"What?" he reacted. Then he realized his leg had been bouncing anxiously under the table - right up until Angela had said his name with such accusation. She must have noticed. That and, he realize from the feel of it, that his face had been holding an irregular expression. Lips tight, brow creased, eyes unusually wide. With all those indicators even Zach probably would have guessed something was off. Angela's super-human perception was wasted on him today.

"How much coffee have you had?" she asked, reaching for his cup, "You're like totally wired."

He nearly answered her truthfully - 'None' - but was distracted by her hand taking his cup and he reacted a moment too late to stop her.

"It's full," she told him, as if he didn't know, "And _cold_."

Still, she didn't ask. She didn't ask: 'What's wrong?' 'What are you doing here?' 'Why aren't you eating anything?" "No pie?' She just looked at him.

"I think Bones is avoiding me," he spilled, "I know she's mad. I just don't know how mad because I haven't seen her in… over 24 hours."

He hadn't paused to estimate the number of hours. Somehow, without trying, he knew exactly how many hours they had been apart. He had to hesitate at the last second to stop himself from revealing that.

"Must be serious," Angela diagnosed, "Usually you get mad at each other at the same time. When just one of you is mad at the other - it's a bigger deal."

Booth didn't have anything to say to that.

"Are you sure she's mad at you," she continued, "and not just staying away because Wyatt's snooping around?"

"Snooping?" Booth asked, wondering how much Bones had told her about the evaluation and its aim.

"Yeah," Angela said in more hushed tones, "He talked to me and Cam the other day - I think he got to Hodgins today after lunch. He had warning from Cam and I by then though."

"Nobody said anything about him talking to people about us," Booth complained uselessly to the universe.

"Jack joked that Wyatt even went to talk to Zach about you two," she told him, starting to chuckle at the memory, "…at least, I'm pretty sure he was kidding."

Booth nodded with a weak, "heh," in reply.

"No worries, sweetie," she promised reassuringly, "It was obvious what he was digging for and - to our disappointment - we could all honestly attest that you and Brennan are close, but as professional as they come."

"Thanks," he said, turning his gaze out the window.

"Booth, you really look like you need to talk about it," Angela persisted frankly, "Whatever it _is _exactly. And if you do, you shouldn't stall any more because Brennan's meeting me here for dinner in ten minutes or less."

_Finally! A chance to talk her down_, Booth thought.

"And," Angela added, "_She _definitely sounded like she needed to talk. So I hope she's not avoiding your or else she'll probably take off when she sees you here and keep whatever's wrong all bottled up."

"I have to talk to her, Ange," Booth insisted, "But if she won't talk to me, you've gotta keep after her okay? If we don't sort this out before Wyatt completes his evaluation…"

"I can try," she answered carefully, "but it would be easier to convince her to open up, if I had an inkling about what's upsetting her."

_Can I answer that without letting it slip that Bones and I are a couple now… _Booth wondered a moment. He began his explanation cautiously:

"Wyatt told her some things she didn't know and now she's starting to think that - that our _friendship _impairs our, well, _my _judgment when we're in the field."

"Ohh no," Angela breathed.

"Yeah," Booth grunted.

"Wait, so that means Brennan now agrees with Cullen?"

"Well, thanks to Wyatt she's wondering whether Cullen's right to consider splitting us up.

"Booth," Angela said, her face full of urgency, "Brennan doesn't _wonder _about things."

"What do you mean she doesn't wonder -" he began scornfully.

"Ohh no," she said again.

"Stop saying _ohh no_," Booth hissed anxiously.

"When I called her and set up our dinner date," she explained, "Brennan said she had to do something first."

"So?"

"Her phone was cutting in and out the way it does when she calls me from your office."

"So she's at the FBI? Wait, you think she went to Cullen? Without talking to me first?"

"If she thought it was for the best, that's the only way she'd do it, so that you wouldn't have the chance to charm her out of it.

"Just like if you thought you were putting her life at greater risk by staying together, you'd be knocking on Cullen's door asking to be reassigned now too without talking to her."

Despite the dreadful possibility that Angela might be right, Booth's mood light considerably. _She's choosing __**us **__over our work._

"Quit grinning," Angela scolded him, thinking it was because of what she said about charming Brennan, "And try to undo whatever she's done!"

"Call her for me," he told Angela, "And keep calling her. If she hasn't talked to him yet, stall her til I can get there. If she has -"

"Booth, she's supposed to be _here _in like two minutes. If I'm right, it's too late to stop her. You need to go convince Cullen she forgot to take her medication or something!"

Booth dismissed the possibility. There would be no 'undoing it,' if she confirmed Cullen's concerns."Call her anyway," he insisted, "It's late enough that hopefully Cullen had already gone home when she got there. I don't want her getting any ideas about getting a hold of him at home."

"Okay," Angela agreed, pulling out her cell phone and trying to give him an encouraging look before he took off.

* * *

"Where we differ, Dr. Brennan, is that you believe you shouldn't have a partner who is willing to risk his life for you, whereas I, and the FBI for that matter, believe you _should_. You're a civilian, and a very valuable one at that."

"My life is no more valuable than Booth's," Brennan protested, "And besides, the bottom line is that Booth shouldn't be taking _unnecessary _risks for me, or putting his career on the line. That's what Cullen is objecting to, isn't it? And it's undeniable that Booth is guilty of both."

"Guilty?" Dr. Wyatt echoed, "My word. Have you discussed Agent Booth's crimes with him and the motivations behind them?"

"Yes, but I didn't call him a criminal. You're stuffing words in my mouth."

Wyatt allowed himself a little chuckle, but didn't correct her. Instead he let silence fill the space between them as he took his chin thoughtfully in one hand. Brennan's eyes narrowed as he sat there without a reply.

"Are you doing that thing Sweets does now?" she asked him after a moment, "Not talking so that I'll feel the need to fill the void and accidentally say something revealing from my subconscious mind."

Dr. Wyatt grinned, took another one more moment as if reaching a conclusion, then withdrew his hand from his chin to re-join their conversation.

"No I was just thinking," Wyatt told her, "… Dr. Brennan do you know why men have a shorter life expectancy than women?"

"I'm aware of a few theories. I don't know that any has been proven conclusively."

"In that case, I'd love to get your expert opinion on a study I read the other day -"

"Have we changed the subject, Dr. Wyatt?"

"Only briefly," he assured her, "The researchers found that young and/or mate-less men are more prone to engaging in risky, life-threatening behavior. Now I would have thought this was because males who are attached to a mate, with the potential for a family, would less inclined towards daring exploits -"

"That's because as a psychiatrist you're narrowly focused on the individual human consciousness and emotions as if they were independent of, or at least superior to, biological hardwiring."

Dr. Wyatt only smiled, happy to see her blowing off some steam, and let her continue.

"The human male does not have to be a 'family man' to successfully pass on his genes, though can help, since women are biologically hardwired to look for that in a mate. But they can be fooled, of course. What the human male _must _be able to do long before trying to convince the female he's a stable provider, however, is get her attention."

"By engaging in risky behavior," concluded Wyatt.

"Commonly known as 'showing off,'" Dr. Brennan added.

"So perhaps," Dr. Wyatt replied, "scientifically, the best thing to do, for the sake of granting our dear Agent Booth a long life, is to find him a steady girlfriend. That way he won't be tempted by this biological urge to take unnecessary risks. What do you think?"

Bones's mouth dropped open and a small, surprised "eh" escaped her throat.

"I think," she replied after clearing her throat, "Agent Booth is perfectly capable of doing that for himself. And he's not a show-off."

Dr. Wyatt regarded her calmly, his eyes twinkling.

"Only joking, of course, Dr. Brennan," he assured her finally.

_That entire tangent was to make a joke? _Brennan wondered doubtfully.

"Surely Agent Booth doesn't agree that the two of you shouldn't work together anymore?" he asked, his expression growing more serious.

The abrupt change in the direction of their discussion threw Brennan for a moment.

"No, he doesn't seem to think he's done anything wrong," she answered flatly.

"What did he say in response to your concerns?"

"That it was late and we should discuss it after we'd gotten some sleep."

Her eyes suddenly went wide and, before Wyatt could reply, she added:

"We weren't sleeping together - we were talking on the phone and… it was late."

"Naturally." he said reassuringly, adding with a chuckle, "That would be wildly inappropriate, wouldn't it."

Brennan didn't reply.

"I take it, though, that you have yet to complete that discussion?"

"That's correct," she admitted.

"Dr. Brennan," he said, his voice dropping just slightly enough to sound conspiratorial, "I highly recommend you finish your talk with Booth _before _you go to Director Cullen with your decision. Furthermore, if you can bear to postpone taking action until after I've submitted my assessment, I guarantee that my evaluation will yield a very pleasing result. One that you've desired for quite a long time. It may even change your mind that the best way to keep Agent Booth safe, is to stop working with him."

Brennan's brow furrowed.

"What result?" she asked after a moment, to which Dr. Wyatt merely grinned puckishly as her phone began to ring.


	25. Chapter 25

"Ah, Agent Booth," Dr. Wyatt greeted him as he exited the elevator on Cullen's floor, "This is fortuitous."

_If by fortuitous you mean inconvenient as hell_, Booth thought.

"Hi Doc," he replied, "Sorry I don't have time for a session right now. I need to drop by the Deputy Director's office."

"I'm afraid when I spoke to him earlier, he indicated he would be gone by six, and it's after now," Wyatt told him, "And FYI, as they say, our sessions are over with. Cullen will receive my evaluation first thing tomorrow morning."

This news turned Booth round to fully face the smiling psychiatrist, psychiatrist continued speaking before Booth launch an investigation.

"Sadly, I have to go sit with an injured friend, so I can't stay and chat. Just wanted to let you know that I've finished and it was a pleasure working with you again."

Just then someone came out of the conference room that Wyatt had appeared to be leaving as Booth arrived.

"Angela, I promise my phone didn't ring until just now," she was saying into her cell phone, not yet noticing who Wyatt was speaking with, "I don't get good service… here."

She looked up then and saw the relieved Booth standing with Wyatt by the elevator.

"Ta-ta, agents," Dr. Wyatt said as the doors opened for him, "Best of luck."

He didn't mind a bit as the doors closed him in that neither had answered his farewell.

"Booth!" Bones said, still speaking into her phone, "Angela, I'm going to be later than I thought, don't wait for - Ange?"

Bones looked at her cell in frustration, "Must have lost service again."

They looked at each other for several moments without moving or speaking, each feeling as if their separation had lasted years. Both wondering, just a little, if they had really declared their love for one other a few short days ago, or if they had dreamt it.

"We need to talk," Bones said, breaking the silence.

"Yeah," Booth agreed, glancing up and down the unreliably empty halls, "But not here. Let's go to my office."

* * *

They sat beside each other in the chairs opposite his desk.

"I came to see Cullen," she told him.

"Did you?" Booth asked, not pretending to wonder why she would.

"No, I ran into Wyatt," she answered, "He persuaded me to wait for Cullen's decision. But he didn't convince me that I shouldn't still tell Cullen to split us up after."

Booth ran a hand through his hair and leaned back heavily in his chair.

"Why?"

"Because I cloud your judgment," she replied.

He scoffed as if he found her answer conceited.

"And it's about time I did something to protect you for a change," Bones added.

"What are you talking about?"

"You've taken so many risks for me," she explained, "Professional risks, physical risks -"

"You've done the same for me," Booth argued.

"No, I haven't," Bones objected.

"You killed a man to save my life," he insisted, "You lied to the FBI that you knew where Gallagher was holding me, when it was just a hunch. If you had been wrong -"

"Great two times -"

"_More _than two - way more than two!" Booth contended, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, to get closer to her, "Bones, every time you help solve a case, I take that personally. I know you think its superstitious and silly, but its not to me. Truly, every time you help me put a murderer away, I feel you've helped save a piece of my soul."

Brennan sighed. She understood, and he could see that in her eyes, and that what he'd said moved her deeply, but -

"I'm not interested in putting you right with God just so you can go around taking stupid risks to protect me."

Booth shook his head, with a slight smile.

"You know, you blame me for taking risks, because for a while there you thought you'd lost me, but you're way worse than me. You're always insisting on following me into dangerous situations because you want to have my back, but you're not trained to handle those situations and you're not supposed to have a gun. The only reason Cullen doesn't have a file on you as thick as mine is that you're just plain lucky. So he's never found out."

"It's 'way worse than I,'" she corrected, "And I don't believe in luck."

He knew she was going to say that.

"Look, Bones," he continued, "You know what it's like… it's like when you and Hodgins were buried alive."

Bones frowned, but listened.

"You were both running out of air, and it may have seemed like the best thing would have been if only one of you had been in there, so that one person would have had longer to breath while we all searched. But in reality, combining your knowledge and your skills to extend your air supply and get a message out to us was the only way you could have survived. If only one of you had been taken, we never would have found that person in time.

"That's how our partnership works too. Yes, there's some added risk because we care about each other, but because we work so well together - com_ple_ment each other so well - there are fewer risks that need taking."

Bones grinned at his use of the word 'complement,' but Booth wasn't sure he'd convinced her yet. "The only way to guarantee each others' safety, would to be for us to quit crime-fighting altogether. And neither of us wants that, do we?"

"No," she answered without hesitation.

"Risk is part of the job," he said, taking her hands and looking deeply into her eyes, "But I can promise to try harder to minimize the risks I take as much as possible and not to keep them from you."

"Thank you."

"So?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, Booth," she told him apologetically, "You make a compelling argument, but I'm still not sure. The best I can do is wait to hear what Cullen has to say about Wyatt's evaluation, but after that, if he keeps us together - I don't know…

"I had to stand over your grave, Booth, believing I'd gotten you killed. You don't know what that's like. I'm trying to think rationally about all of this, but I just…"

He squeezed her hands, "Hey, it's okay. Give it some time. We'll see what Cullen decides and then… whatever you want to do is okay. Alright?"

She nodded.

"As long as you don't decide to dump me," he added with a charming grin.

She laughed, pulling back from him and placing her hands on the armrests of her chair, preparing to stand.

"I won't," she agreed, "You'd never get over it."

Bones smiled wickedly as she rose from her chair and he followed suit.

"Dr. Brennan," he said, feigning incredulity, "Are you _teasing _me?"

"Come on," Bones replied, ignoring his question, "I'm starving. Let's go get something to eat."


	26. Chapter 26

Lance Sweets, standing over his desk, pulled a cold pack away from his swollen eye as he looked up to see his who was at his door. It took a moment for his vision to focus well enough to recognize his visitor.

"Gordon," he said, rather surprised.

"My, that looks painful," his colleague replied.

"It is," Sweets confirmed, "Please have a seat."

Gordon happily accepted.

"So," he began, once Lance too was settled in his chair with an ice pack pressed against the side of his face again, "Dr. Brennan hit you, did she?"

For a moment, Sweets considered making up a story, but Wyatt already seemed so sure of the answer and sympathetic about it. So, he nodded.

"Mary told you?" Sweets asked, referring to his secretary.

"Mm," Dr. Wyatt replied noncommittally. After a moment, he added, "I'm quite relieved."

Dr. Sweets, pulled the ice pack away from his face and looked - dumbfounded - at Wyatt."Relieved? That Dr. Brennan hit me?"

"Quite."

Sweets sighed. _This day just keeps getting better and better._

"Why?" he asked Wyatt, "Do you even know why she hit me?"

"Well, she may have tried to cloak it in a more recent grievance, but I'm hoping it was _actually _payback for letting her believe Agent Booth had died."

"I take it this was a recent topic of discussion between you two then?"

"Doctor-patient privilege I'm afraid, Dr. Sweets."

"Of course, Dr. Wyatt," Sweets rejoined sulkily, raising the icepack back to his face, "I apologize. Does doctor-patient privilege prevent you from explaining to me _why _a violent outburst from Dr. Brennan is a _relief _to you?"

Dr. Wyatt smiled, and Lance's unfailing intuitive senses told him to prepare for a long answer from his elder colleague.

"I've been eager to chat with you for some time about your book," Wyatt said.

_Or, he's not going to answer me at all, _Lance considered.

"But," he continued, "it didn't seem appropriate until I had finished my evaluation since I understand Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan are central subjects."

"I don't know about central," Sweets hedged, "Several other case studies will be included. I'm taking a clinical approach to efficacy and focused outcomes - their relationship is a fascinating example, but one of several."

"I would have thought that they'd be very nearly the ideal example."

Sweets shrugged impatiently, "Gordon, are you going to tell me why you're glad Brennan hit me?"

Wyatt continued to ignore the question.

"You know, I envy their relationship," he admitted to his young associate.

Sweets raised a suspicious eyebrow."It's remarkable how they manage to find common ground when their fields of expertise are so disparate. They recognize and admire each other's abilities, yet they still push one another to perform at their highest level. And then there's the way they essentially speak different languages, one science, the other gut instinct, but a sort of third vocabulary is continually building between them and they translate for one another as necessary -"

"You got all that from meeting with them individually?" Lance cut in."No indeed," Gordon acknowledged, "To conduct a thorough evaluation of a partnership, it is necessary to go outside the individuals themselves. According to their colleagues and friends, it seems their trajectory has changed little from what I observed a few years ago."

"Ah," Sweets replied, feeling like an idiot, but not knowing what else to say.

"Well, pardon me for rambling on. You certainly are no less aware of their attributes than I, since you work with them regularly. Have you never coveted their remarkable connection?"

_Is this a trick? _Lance suddenly wondered, _Is he still conducting the evaluation after all and pumping me for information? Trying to get me to confirm Booth and Brennan's connection is deeper than a working partnership? _He found it hard to believe Gordon Wyatt, would stoop to such deception. _But he is clearly after something, _he decided.

"I'm currently in a very rewarding relationship, actually," Sweets answered, "So no, I don't feel envious."

"So I have heard," Gordon replied warmly, "By all accounts she is a highly intelligent and skilled forensic scientist, if somewhat, how did Dr. Saroyan put it… 'socially abrasive'… God, that sounds so familiar. Why does that sound familiar?"

Wyatt pretended to struggle to recall why while Sweets attempted a carefree chuckle."Daisy and Dr. Brennan actually have surprisingly little in common aside from their love of forensic anthropology."

"Dr. Brennan? No, I don't think that's who I was thinking of," Wyatt replied, "I'm sure you're right. Ms. Wick and Dr. Brennan probably have about as much in common as you and Agent Booth!"

Sweets brought the ice pack back up to his face, frowning like a pouting child.

"No matter," Wyatt smiled, "Still, before Ms. Wick, you were never tempted to, say, use Booth and Brennan's relationship as a guide to try to salvage a failing relationship in your own life?"

"_Excuse _me?" Sweets shot back indignantly, pulling the pack away from his face again. The worst part of Wyatt's veiled accusation, however, was that Lance knew immediately which relationship he was referring to.

"Perhaps a double-date disguised as partner-bonding pottery therapy?" Wyatt prodded.

"Dr. Wyatt -"

"Strange though to focus on partnership building activities when your instructions from the FBI were to be wary that the partners were becoming _too _close."

"It wasn't as simple as being too close or not. Booth arrested her father, presenting major trust issues and severely conflicted emotions for Dr. Brennan that threatened their ability to -"

"Trust issues and severely conflicted emotions?" Gordon echoed with a sudden rise in volume.

"Yes - what?"

"Like those that would certainly follow learning that her partner had not died and not informed her?" Dr. Wyatt boomed. His perpetually friendly expression had vanished, leaving a grim individual whom Sweets hardly recognized.

"What? Wait, it didn't go down like that. Once I explained -"

"Once you _explained_," Wyatt repeated derisively, "That's what burns me up the most, Dr. Sweets - your _explanation _that made everything all right again. Knowing Dr. Brennan's history, knowing her deep connection to Agent Booth, you still judged her fit to handle his death and the aftermath of finding out it was a fraud? Please tell me you had some reason to believe she was a security risk instead!"

"Of course she wasn't," Sweets rejoined weakly, "but I was charged with making that list as short as possible and that's what I did."

"No, Dr. Sweets, you used national security as an opportunity to treat one of your patients like lab monkey."

Lance's jaw dropped at the accusation.

"Here in America, Dr. Wyatt, I believe the expression is 'lab rat,'" Sweets lashed back quickly at his colleague, not yet understanding why he was under attack - again.

"I thought invoking the memory of Harry Harlow would be appropriate at this moment."

Sweets met Wyatt's penetrating gaze with astonishment.

"I was _not _experimenting. And certainly not acting callously. I was doing my job. It's not my fault that Agent Booth's job required him to have his death faked."

"You were entrusted with a _choice_," Wyatt insisted.

"And I made the one that I thought was best… at the time," Sweets maintained, yet his eyes betrayed a desperate need for understanding from his colleague.

Gordon sighed and seemed to soften slightly.

"Lance," he said slowly, "You're her _doctor_. She trusts your expertise. Don't you have any inkling what you did with that trust? The emotional equivalent would be if you, as her surgeon, _knowingly_, cut open her chest, pulled out her heart, then tossed it aside, assuring her that this was no big deal because her heart was never fully functional to begin with."

Lance gaped at him. So Wyatt continued on a tirade.

"You must know better than anyone what a vital family surrogate Agent Booth has become for Dr. Brennan and what it would mean to her emotional well-being to lose him.

"You took Booth away with no hope of return. Then when he did come back alive and well, you defended your decision to deceive her by assuring her, with all the weight of your expertise, that she was capable of accepting his loss and moving on."

"Hold up -" Sweets finally jumped in to defend himself, "That's what your heart-tossing analogy was about, right? You think I've convinced her to think of herself as heartless and unfeeling? Because there are two major problems with that. One, she _never _accepts my psychological diagnoses, especially when they are about her, and two, I've been arguing with her from the beginning that there are a whole host of emotions waiting to be confronted underneath her rational exterior -"

"You are right. Dr. Brennan has long preferred to think of herself as one hundred percent rational, but I'm afraid you haven't been as consistent in dispelling that myth as you think you have. At least twice you reinforced the myth and I'm afraid you even added a negative spin to it that she hadn't considered."

"When? How?"

"At her father's trial you testified that she, as a hyper-rational personality, like her father, was capable of rationalizing _anything_, even murder. I read the transcript."

"Yeah, but I only said that because -"

Sweets cut himself off, thinking twice about admitting to perjury to Wyatt.

"Unfortunately, it doesn't matter _why _you said it," Dr. Wyatt said quietly, "It matters that she may very well believe you and have accepted that estimation of herself."

"That's where you're wrong," Sweets insisted eagerly, "Because she most certainly disregarded my testimony - she never accepts my professional opinion on anything! She has _zero _respect for my abilities."

Sweets paused, embarrassed at how that petulantly that came out.

"You've confused her disdain for psychology as disdain for you personally," Dr. Wyatt corrected him, "Given her lack of respect for the field of psychology, only respect for you and your abilities could have persuaded her to voluntarily continue partners' therapy with you for so long. Furthermore, Dr. Brennan knows from working with Agent Booth that just because she can't _understand _how it's possible to examine human behavior for answers the way she examines human remains for answers, doesn't mean that it isn't possible.

"She responds to data and your accuracy in profiling and reading suspects in the interrogation room cannot have gone unnoticed by her."

Sweets considered this a moment.

"Okay," he said, "For the sake of argument, I'll accept that, despite appearances, Dr. Brennan respects my opinion enough to have been hurt by my testimony. I'll speak to her about it. But that was one incident out of many months of encouraging her to believe the opposite about herself."

Wyatt nodded.

"Confidentially, Agent Booth is very appreciative of that," Gordon offered, "But have you stopped to consider how your words may have been highlighted by Dr. Addy's crime? He was her close colleague. He had been her intern. learned from her, idolized her, and, most importantly, shares her hyper-rational approach to life. Then he, like her father, committed murder. Do you imagine she hasn't made these connections? That she hasn't taken the burden of his act upon herself for encouraging him to be so rational? Deep down, might not she even question whether one day she could make the same mistake Zach did?"

Sweets sat stunned.

"Therefore," Wyatt concluded, still rather testy, "I am relieved she hit you, because I take it as a sign that she is rejecting the image of herself as some kind of Tinman, or android, which she believes you hold. Do you relate better to the use sci-fi vocab, Dr. Sweets?"

Lance took his ice pack in both hands and pressed his forehead into it as he exhaled a long, weary breath. Wyatt watched the young man, his wrath subsiding once again as he did. Finally, Sweets brought the pack back down, staring at it in his lap as he began to speak.

"Gordon," he said, without even glance up at his colleague, "They gave me fifteen minutes to review the list and decide. I swear to you, in that time neither the temptation to experiment nor to spice up my book crossed my mind. There wasn't time to think things through properly - or I was too… intimidated to insist on more.

"But later… you're totally right about the trial, and about Zach - I should have considered their impact after the fact.

"I never planned to use circumstances to test their emotional responses… but by the day of Booth's funeral, I had formed predictions and was ready to take down observations. I _was _looking at the two of them like test subjects, not like patients. Not like people. God, that's sick."

"But a common sickness among some of the most brilliant minds in our field," Wyatt reminded him as consolation, "Some of whom never saw the error of their ways. Now that you've recognized how you strayed from the straight and narrow, with, by the way, far less sadistic results then your predecessors - "

Lance winced. But Gordon was smiling kindly again. The jolly Englishman had returned and all was forgiven.

" - you'll be much less likely to let it happen again. And you'll know you can call me, if you suspect you're being tempted again. Just as, I hope, I may call on you when I need some perspective."

Sweets nodded, with a small, but grateful smile pulling on his lips. Digesting all they had discussed, he took the ice pack from his lap and carefully balanced it the end of his armrest.

"Thank you," he said.

"Not at all. Us brilliant young psychiatrists need to stick together."

Sweets nodded and smiled a moment before turning his gaze to gravely meet Wyatt's.

"Meantime," said Sweets, "How can I reverse the damage?"

Gordon smiled reassuringly.

"First, get that ice back on your face…"


	27. Chapter 27

The call from Cullen finally came by about five in the evening the next day. Booth and Brennan barely looked at one another as they entered his office and sat down.

Cullen studied a document before him, presumably the evaluation, as he began:

"According to Dr. Wyatt, Agent Booth, has 'put himself at unnecessary physical risk and performed unprofessionally on occasion with the consistent aim of protecting Dr. Brennan from harm.' However, he concludes that were often extenuating circumstances and that he does _not _find Agent Booth's behavior to be due to 'an overdeveloped personal relationship' between the two of you"

None of Wyatt's vocab., as read by Cullen, was foreign to Booth, yet he still found himself instinctively looking to Bones to interpret the overall meaning.

"Then what is it caused by?" Brennan asked, looking nearly as bewildered as Booth felt.

Cullen hesitated to deliver Wyatt's answer, almost as if it brought him pain. It certainly brought him displeasure:

"'Agent Booth is justifiably conflicted about how protective to be of Dr. Brennan as she is, as a civilian assisting the FBI in the field, his ward - unarmed and vulnerable. She is also a vital asset to the FBI and the prestigious Jeffersonian Institute. This constitutes a great deal of pressure on Agent Booth to shield Dr. Brennan from any and all potential dangers, yet at the same time he knows his partner to be a strong, independent, equal in their partnership by most measures, and that she does not want, or deserve to be sidelined.'"

Cullen paused to gauge their reactions so far. Brennan looked slightly pleased, though still stiff and uncertain in general. Booth seemed to think he should be saying something - defending himself perhaps. His mouth was slightly parted, but no words had come yet. The deputy director continued before they could. _This will make Booth's jaw really drop_, he thought, as he dropped the evaluation onto his desk.

"Wyatt advises that this conflict of Booth's can be fixed by training Dr. Brennan up as a full-fledged agent."

"What?!" came Booth's instantaneous outburst.

Dr. Brennan, on the other hand, laughed with delight.

"Alright," she agreed, dragging the word out with enthusiasm. Booth looked at her in horror.

"I will _not _be taking Dr. Wyatt's suggestion," Cullen clarified.

"Thank God," Booth exhaled softly.

"I will not _fully _defer to Dr. Wyatt's judgment on this," the deputy director explained, "But I will compromise and approve Dr. Brennan to carry a weapon -"

Bones beamed. Booth sighed, but accepted defeat.

"Upon completing an FBI firearms safety course," Cullen added, "And on the condition that your partners therapy with Dr. Sweets, which is now mandatory - also per Dr. Wyatt."

Booth couldn't help but notice his partner's joy vanish as her face suddenly darkened. In front of Cullen, however, was not the time to pursue the cause.

"So we're partners again?" he asked his boss with tempered eagerness.

"Effective immediately," Cullen confirmed, "Agent Sullivan will pass the Simmons case off to you first thing tomorrow - good luck with that one."

"Sir, thank you for the firearm privilege," Brennan spoke up, still looking grim, "How long will the therapy be mandatory?"

"Three months minimum. If by the end of that period, Dr. Sweets or I have the _slightest _new cause for concern, this will be extended. If any serious new concern should arise, your partnership will be terminated. Are we clear on that?"

"Yes sir," Booth answered immediately.

Cullen turned to Brennan.

"And with it your gun privileges, Dr. Brennan."

"I understand, sir," she replied.

"Okay, that's all then. Thank you for not disappointing me."


	28. Chapter 28

Booth finally broke his anxious silence when they reached the elevator - a safe distance from Cullen's office.

"A gun," he said, "That's pretty sweet, huh?"

She smiled. _He's afraid to ask straight out_, she thought.

"Wyatt told me his evaluation would result in something I'd wanted for a long time," Bones replied.

"Wyatt's a smart guy," Booth remarked, "I think he made a good point about it being hard to know when to start and when to stop protecting you. Your having a gun, being properly trained to use it in the field, will probably help me a lot."

Bones gave him a knowing look, "You hate it."

He grinned back at her, "Yeah, but I'll have to get used to it… won't I?"

"Yes," she answered confidently, "You will."

"You've decided?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied.

"_Yesss_," he cheered her decision in a whisper, discretely pumping a fist, as she bit back a laugh.

"Dr. Brennan, Agent Booth," a familiar voice called out to them.

The interruption reminded Booth that neither of them had pressed the button for the elevator, and he quickly did so before turning to their approaching therapist.

"Whoa-ho, nice shiner, Sweets!" he exclaimed, when he saw his face. Booth took several steps away from the elevators to get a better look at Sweets' eye. Bones reluctantly followed him.

"What happened?" Booth asked.

The agent compassionately held back a crack, asking Sweets if he had refused to give up his lunch money in the cafeteria. After all, the young doc's childhood tribulations had come in handy that time Parker was being bullied.

"Long story," Sweets replied.

Booth glanced at Bones for her reaction to the black eye and recognized the same dour expression she'd had when Cullen brought up continuing therapy.

"Did _you _hit him?" Booth asked her with incredulity.

"What? Why would you think that?" she asked.

Booth glanced back at Sweets. He too appeared surprised by Booth's accusation, but he didn't jump in to deny it. They were surprised because he was right! When it seemed clear to Booth that neither of them was going to fess up, he decided to have a little fun with it.

"Well, given the size and shape of the bruising," he began explaining to Bones, pointing at Lance's eye, and drawing a circle with his index finger in the air around it, "It's clear that he was struck with a fist approximately -"

Booth reached for Brennan's right wrist, eventually catching hold of it despite some resistance and balled her fingers up into a fist as she glared at him -

"Approximately _this _size," he continued, "And the depth of the purpleness suggests a blow from someone skilled in several kinds of marital arts and strong enough to say, knock over someone my height and weight - if caught off guard."

Sweets smiled lightly.

"The depth of purpleness?" Bones repeated.

"Yeah," he maintained with a wide grin.

_She's trying not to laugh_, Booth told himself, though nothing in her expression confirmed that.

"Dr. Brennan," Sweets interjected into the lull in their banter, "I was hoping I might have a word - in private."

Booth turned his whole body deliberately to face Sweets. Dr. Sweets glanced at him involuntarily a moment, then shifted his eye contact back to Dr. Brennan.

"Though I am willing to discuss this in Agent Booth's presence if you prefer. However, I humbly ask that you try to keep an open mind until I've finished what I have to say."

"What the hell happened between you two?" Booth asked, looking from one to the other, alpha male alarms going off in his head, "What did you do, Sweets?"

Sweets flinched, but kept his eyes on Dr. Brennan this time, waiting for her decision.

She turned to Booth.

"We should celebrate our partnership reinstatement with the others," she told him, "They've been worried. Would you go tell them the good news and I'll meet up with you all at the diner, or the lab, or wherever."

Booth's hands went to his hips as he prepared to protest."I'll fill you in later," she promised, "If what he has to say warrants forgiveness, it's better you're not here intimidating him while he says it. And if it doesn't, I'll kick him in the testicles."

That got Booth smiling again. Sweets, who had up until that moment been quite relieved that she was sending Booth away, turned deathly pale. Still, he stood his ground.

"Okay, but try to avoid kicking him in the testicles, if you can," Booth warned her lightly, "cause that'll probably count as a 'serious new concern' to Cullen."

She nodded.

"And you're going to tell me what this was all about - why you kicked the crap out of Sweets?"

"There was no kicking involved, but yes, I will," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder to guide him away. He obediently took a step or two back, starting to go.

"Squints' honor?" he asked, holding up his right hand in a Vulcan "live long and prosper" hand sign.

Lance laughed soundlessly."Yes," Bones repeated, turning him around and giving him a shove towards the elevators.

He continued talking, however, mostly to himself as he went, though just loud enough that they could still hear him and shake their heads.

"Booth and Bones - together again. And we are _not _partying at the lab. Nooo way. You can forget that. I don't care how good the takeout is. Celebration and dissection do not go together…"

"He's very happy, isn't he?" Sweets said to her as they watched him finally disappear into the elevator.

"Yeah, he is," she confirmed.

* * *

"Gordon Wyatt came to see me," Lance began, "And he helped me realize some things, which taken all together convinced me that I made a phenomenal mistake when I didn't tell you Booth was still alive."

"Because it was an unethical experiment," Bones cut in.

"No, Dr. Brennan," Sweets insisted earnestly, "I swear to you I never intended to experiment on you -"

"Right," she replied, dripping with sarcasm.

"Seriously," he protested, "You're right that I was eagerly and immaturely looking forward to quantifying your reactions, but only after the fact. When the FBI came to me with Booth's list, I was not thinking about my book, or getting an emotional reaction out of you. There wasn't time to even consider that.

"I am deeply sorry to you, though, because I let time and other career pressures cloud my judgment when I took your name off the list. I also failed to recognize the damaging effect that things I said, and excuses I made for not telling you, may have had -"

"Nothing you said or did _damaged _me," Brennan retorted.

"Hey, if that's the case, awesome," Sweets said, " I'm glad, but please hear me out. I need to be sure that we're clear on how I see you -"

"I don't know what that means," Brennan interrupted, but primarily to annoy him.

"Look, I'm just going to cut to the heart of it, Dr. Brennan -"

The irony of his own choice of words momentarily distracted Sweets. _Wyatt's imagery sure got into my head_, he thought.

"While there are clear psychological similarities between you and your father, and you and Zach - I do not, for a second, believe you are capable of murder. Also, I should have known better than to agree or even have implied that I believed you are capable easily moving on after the death of a loved one -"

A glare from Brennan made Sweets consider the safety of his testicles and he rephrased -

" - or someone you're close to, such as, Agent Booth."

"You're wrong about the killing part," she argued, "You testified I was capable of murdering Kersh to protect Russ and you were right. I have killed to protect someone else before. And I'd have done it for Russ. I'm not… damaged by that assessment."

"If I had stated it that way in court, you shouldn't have been, necessarily. But what I said on the stand was that your hyper-rational personality, in general, permitted you to rationalize even murder. This isn't strictly true. What I left out, was that you could only take a life under very limited circumstances, and that you could not do so, under any conditions, without some degree of remorse.

"Dr. Brennan, if even a tiny part of you believed that I see you as inhuman or unfeeling, I am so, deeply sorry and I hope you can forgive me."

Brennan laughed, but, to the trained professional, it was clearly a forced response.

"Look, Sweets," she said, "I don't know how you or Wyatt got it into your heads that I punched you for any reason other than what I told you, but if you swear you just made a mistake, that it wasn't a calculated manipulation of Booth and I that made you take me off the list, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. _This time_. Especially since, if I'm wrong to trust you, I'm confident the memory of getting slugged and the threat of _damage _to your reproductive organs will sufficiently deter you from trying anything like that in future."

"Actually," he replied, "Studies in operant conditioning have long demonstrated that punishments for wrong behavior are far less effective than rewards for right behavior."

"Fine," Brennan snapped, "I shall reward you by not kicking you in the testicles when you don't try to manipulate us. Are we through?"

Sweets sighed. He and Wyatt had anticipated this would probably be her attitude, but had also agreed it was still important that she hear him affirm her humanity. On a deeper level, she had been hurt by what he'd said and done, and on that level she would hear his retraction.

Still, it didn't feel like enough. He felt he owed her more. A tangible truth, which would ease her mind and heart of an undeserved guilt, rather than the psychological speculation she detested. The truth about Zach would have been perfect. To know that Zach was not a murderer, however, when she would be needed to testify for him as a character witness would put Dr. Brennan in the position of having to choose between perjuring herself or abandoning Zach - a poor gift to exchange one burden for another. If Sweets were going to break the sanctity of confidentiality, for the greater good of Brennan and Zach's peace of mind, it would have to wait until after Zach's trial, he reluctantly concluded.

"Yeah, we are," he answered her finally, "If we're cool now?… By which I mean if our previous level of goodwill has been re-established."

"Yes, Sweets, I'm familiar with the expression," said Bones, "We're cool."

"Okay, great."

Brennan stood, took a few steps from her chair, then turned back to Sweets, still seated.

"So, aren't you coming?" she asked him, "To celebrate with us?"

"Oh," he stammered with surprise, "I - I'm invited to that?"

She smiled, "I said we were cool, didn't I?"

"Ha! Great. Okay, yeah, I'm there!" he said as he followed her out, "Mind if I invite Daisy?"

"Ahhh," she answered, without turning around, "Not sure we're _that _cool."

"…Yeah, okay. I understand. I just won't stay real long… no worries…"


	29. Chapter 29

As Booth and the squints waited for the second half of the guests of honor to arrive, Hodgins took a seat beside Booth. Gently bumping Booth's shoulder with his fist, he asked in a half-whisper:

"Hey Booth, you're not going to rat me out to Dr. Brennan about the letter, are ya?"

Hodgins didn't have a chance to get his answer, as Brennan walked in with Sweets at that moment.

"Come on, Sweetie," Angela called out, ushering Brennan to the open seat next to Booth, "Right here. You're allowed to sit close to each other again. Now let's have a toast."

"To Booth and Bones," Sweets suggested, picking up his drink.

"To Bones and Booth," Angela picked up, "And many more years of partnered bliss."

"Here, here," Cam and Hodgins added as they all began to clink glasses.

* * *

"So," Booth said, as the last of their fellow celebrators headed for home, "Why'd you punch Sweets out?"

"You told me to," she replied.

"I did not."

"It was a while ago, but you certainly did," Bones insisted.

"Oh, when we found out he didn't tell you I was alive - but you said he did the right thing so you weren't going to slug him."

"I changed my mind," she answered simply, "But we're cool now. He apologized."

"What about me? Don't I deserve an apology?"

"Nope. Because you didn't call me like you should have."

"Okay, okay," Booth said, raising a hand in surrender, "Let's not go _there _again."

"I'm not going anywhere," Bones said, turning on her stool to face him, "I still want my hint."

He turned to face her as well, looking confused at first.

"Hint? Ohh right, my moment," he said, remembering where they had left off before the evaluation had sidetracked them.

"Alright, but look Bones, the reason why you're not going to get it, even with a hint, is that you weren't even around when I had my realization."

Brennan contemplated what this could mean, then responded knowingly, "Ohhh, you had a sex dream about me," she concluded.

"Bones!" he hissed, glancing around to remind her they couldn't be overheard discussing such topics in public.

"I didn't say it that loud," she insisted, but more softly.

"No, I did not have a sex dream, _okay_?" he whispered, still perturbed, "It was after the Duarte case, but before the plane crash in the golf course. Remember how I gave you a hard time about calling me in on two little bone fragments? I teased you about having missed me?"

"Yeah. But it wasn't me, it was Zach who missed you."

He rolled his eyes, but otherwise chose to ignore that.

"I was projecting, Bones. _I_ missed _you _and had been looking for an excuse to come see you for days without being able to rationalize why. I didn't want you to know that, of course, so when _you _called _me _in, I teased _you _about it to hide my own feelings."

Brennan had to think about this for a moment.

"Is that like when boys pull the hair of girls they like?" she asked.

"Pretty much," he admitted.

"Yeah, I never understood that either," she told him.

"Yeah, well," he muttered, turning back to his drink, "It wasn't the first time I noticed feelings for you that were stronger than they should have been, but it was the first time I realized I had to be careful."

"It was a good moment," she told him, sensing he needed reassurance.

"No, it wasn't, not like yours," he said, feeling he'd let her down after all that build up.

She placed a hand on his arm and leaned closer to him.

"Yeah, well my story was only good because of your part in it," she pointed out as she locked eyes with him.

He grinned and they shared a long gaze, unhindered by the scrutinizing eyes of friends or professional acquaintances.

"What are we still doing here, Bones?" he asked her.

"We should go," she agreed.


End file.
